Jonathan King - Wild World (Pet Shop Boys versus Cat Stevens)

King made this record to try to show that It's a Sin was stolen from Cat Stevens' Wild World. PSB took King to court and won. However, the B Side comparing My Sweet Lord to He's So Fine resulted in a successful lawsuit against George Harrison.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Pet Shop Boys
• synthpop
• Cat Stevens
• 80s
• It's A Sin

[VilePervertAMusical]

Indeed - I am JK! I was there. Reports - as so often - were wrong. They "settled" out of court; I think The Sun gave a small sum to charity. As the lovely Neil; he will confirm. And do watch Vile Pervert; The Musical - online for free.

[rarepsb]

@VilePervertAMusical You appear to have many many youtube accounts.

[VilePervertAMusical]

PSBs never took JK to court; they dropped their case. He's So Fine was years earlier and assisted in the Chiffons winning their case against Harrison.

[rarepsb]

@VilePervertAMusical Do you have any evidence that they dropped the case? I've read many places that they won it.

[CallOfDrewthulhu]

This is certainly interesting. If Pet Shop Boys were not so virtuosic otherwise, I would certainly be tempted to think they did this on purpose to get a hit song from a previous hit song.

[TheFamilySlitheen]

In 1987, King suggested in his Sun column that the Pet Shop Boys had borrowed the melody of Cat Stevens's 1970 song "Wild World" for their UK #1 single "It's a Sin". King also released this cover version of "Wild World" as a single, using a similar musical arrangement to "It's a Sin", in an effort to demonstrate his claims. The Pet Shop Boys sued The Sun, accepting out-of-court damages from the newspaper that they donated to charity.

[zettadom]

What exactly would PSB's claim be? JK was just doing a mashup. Were they saying JK slandered them by implying the stole? I'd be curious to see the complaint. They did use Wild World's opening melody though the chorus is different, many famous songs are borrowed from in that way. BTW He's So Fine melody was the same as the old gospel tune O Happy Day, which is public domain, My Sweet Lord melody was based on both also but the melody should be in PD anyways.

[dolphinmania2010]

Just an excuse to come up with more musical nonsense. Next he will be saying AC/DC ripped off Tchaikovsky.

[GanEdenVideo]

I will Survive is the SAME chord sequence.

[GanEdenVideo]

Where can I download this?

[TheHouseGreyhound]

This stinks.

[djoska87]

@Crumphorn

It's only the chord sequence that's the same structure- and only in the verses. The chorus is nothing like the Cat Stevens song!

There's only so many chord sequences out there, and so many pitches you can transpose them.

Listen to todays rubbish and the chord sequences (if there are any?!) all have similarities to certain predecessors...

[Crumphorn]

I have to say, this is a pretty good mash-up - perhaps Ol' Jonathan could do a few more of those? - but I just don't think it comes close to proving that Tennant plagiarised JK's song. True, It's A Sin can be overlaid very nicely over Wild World but a lot of DJs can do that with other songs written by completely different composers.