Was Satriani's song inspired by Cat Stevens' song from 1973?

Joe Satriani has chosen to sue Coldplay, claiming their 2008 song "Viva La Vida" is a copy of his 2004 song "If I Could Fly".

There's a YouTube video showing both songs with adjusted key and tempo merged together... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofFw9DKu_I

What you are hearing now is Foreigner's Cat Stevens' "Love / Heaven" merged in the same way with Satriani's song. "Love / Heaven" was recorded in 1973 or earlier.

See 3:18 of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUXda-RTE_c

This is just a thrown together example using bits of audio captured from YouTube and a sample of Joe's song, with the keys and bpm adjusted... with some effort and more of the song to choose from, an even closer match could be made.

I dig Stevens, Satriani, and Coldplay by the way - just pointing out that Satriani could have drawn close inspiration from Cat Stevens as easily as Coldplay may have from him (or Stevens).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• satriani
• coldplay
• stevens

[JehovahJones]

Who's the dumb shit that thinks Cat Stevens was a member of Foreigner?

[knoq2wice]

Sorry, at the time the video was made (simply as an example for a different discussion on another site) I had no knowledge of Cat Stevens - I only took info from the Cat Stevens source video mentioned, which was unclear and did give this impression. I tried to research google and album info to make sure, and didn't find any info that was any more clear, so ended up giving up and posted the video. The mistake is not relevant to this discussion however.

[KiernanMooney]

Ugh. I'm bored with arguing this thing to death. I love the Coldplay version, which sounds like the Satriani version, which sounds like Stevens, which sounds like 100 other songs with the same melody and chord progression.

[jacksamurai]

@OliOsbourne A lot of people don't know who Satriani is. Judging from "I Could Fly," his work isn't very compelling.

[enanotech]

in order of appearance: Cat Setevens (Foreigner Suite 1972), Enanitos Verdes (Frances Limon 2002), Joe Satriani (If i could fly 2004), Coldplay ('Viva la Vida 2008), who wrote it first??? all songs has a very basic lick, is just a progresion on scale, but Satch do it better!! greetings.

[meowtrox]

HOW CAN YOU FORGET ENANITO VERDES? add them up man check this out watch?v=G57CgtX-BsI

[OliOsbourne]

@valcarni1 You probably don't even know who Satriani is and would like to hear anything as long as it rhymes.

[valcarni1]

@twitch136 satriani is a worthless piece of crap... who stole the song from cat stevens originally. Yet cat stevens didn't wanna take legal action. Plus it is a totally different song.... typical no hoper Satriani listeners... go Shoot up some more "harry". Untalented wanks like satriani don't deserve other "better peoples" money.

[bonchasilark]

We're copy patenting chord sequences now?

[geoff1121]

Cat Stevens >Joe Satriani

[alekssr7]

satriani is indeed more talented than coldplay talent wise, however he shouldnt of have sued them since coldplay did kind of stole from him, but satriani stole this song from an argentinan band named enanitos verdes and they took it from cat and who knows may be he took it from someone else lol, no one had the right to sue no one but satriani(with all due respect) was the pussy who did...

[ytcarol]

Interesting.

Maybe you could throw in Marty Balin's "Hearts" too - remember? ;-)

hearts can break, and never mend together

love can fade away

hearts can cry, when love won't stay forever

hearts can be that way

[metalfanatic26]

I know this is old news but seriosuly, the thing to remember is that GOOD MUSICIANS have, do, and always will take IDEAS from other things and compile them or interpret them into their own stuff. It's what happens, if it didn't there would be no more new music period, we'd probably still be listening to stuff from friggin 1920, or eariler, with nothign new since