Topic: Warren Zevon vs Kid Rock

[Bonk]

I just sent this email to my local rock radio station:

Dear Anna,

I'm, not sure if I have the right person, but I have heard Kid Rock's
"new" 'All Summer Long' on Q104 a number of times now. The song
absolutely drives me nuts. Why? Because the main piano riff is lifted
directly from Warren Zevon's 'Werewolves of London'
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolves_of_London) and has a theme
remarkably similar to Warren's 'Play It All Night Long' (which is not
really fit for radio play). While Kid Rock's 'All Summer Long' openly
acknowledges and uses Lynyrd Skynyrd's song, the whole piece comes
across as stolen from Warren Zevon without acknowledgement. Every time
I hear the opening of Kid's song, it disappoints me because it is not
the original piece by Warren.

I would like to request that you play 'Werewolves of London' and 'All
Summer Long' back to back so that your listeners might compare the two
themselves and also to give credit where credit is due. Warren Zevon
is a thousand times the musician than Kid Rock could even hope to be.

Sincerely,
 A Warren Zevon Fan.

Take a listen to them both you'll see what I mean. Also check out Warren's 'Play It All Night Long' which says it sooo much better than Kid's pale imitation of Warren.

God rest his soul, Warren Zevon affected my youth and continues to provide joyful and reflective entertainment for me.

Check out 'Gorilla, You're a Desperado' also, it's too much, a good fun silly song.

[Bonk]

I just got this reply from the Director of Programming for the station:

Hey there, fyi … the song is a tribute to Zevon and Skynyrd, and the songwriters of both Sweet Home and Werewolves, including Waddy Wachtel and Warren Zevon, are all credited on the Kid Rock track.  Mash-ups, or songs that include sequences of other songs have been common in a lot of urban music/hip-hop/Top 40 for years, and cross-over to rock occasionally.  Not everyone’s cup of tea, but some see it as a cool flashback.

We’ll start giving the Zevon track a few more spins to bring back more good memories!

My reply:

Thanks for filling me in, I had no idea! Glad to hear it. I kinda
thought it was just too similar and was surprised why no one else had
issues with it - proper credit explains it! Now I get it...

Ya, more Warren would be cool!

Thanks again for the explanation

Very nice of him to fill me in! So now the similarity (and title) makes perfect sense... I can see where Kid Rock is driving, I bet he'd love to cover 'Play It All Night Long' but there's no way they'd play that on the radio becasue of the lyrics (parental advisory: explicit lyrics, adult subject matter).

Warren had raunch down, oh yeah. 

[Corbomite]

Yeah, I do miss the hairy headed gent who ran amok in Kent... 

[Centurus]

Yeah, I do miss the hairy headed gent who ran amok in Kent... 

Hairy headed gent.......you know that can be taken so many different ways.

[GE-Raven]

Well why can't Kid Rock sample, as he is really merging hip hop/rock styles all the time.

Hell my music geek friends and I get together every now and again while enjoying some home brew and flip on the hip hop/rap sirius radio on my tv and play the "name that sample and artist" game.

So far we have found that 75-80% of all the music to be lifted.

Parody is the highest form of flattery?

GE-Raven