Songs The Beatles "Stole": Come Together
Lennon was Sued for Borrowing a Chuck Berry line for this #1 Hit.
Apr 20, 2009
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that The Beatles were accused of stealing a couple of songs. After all, even the most influential rock band in the world had to draw inspiration from somewhere. It's quite unlikely that The Beatles ever set out to deliberately copy another song or rip anybody off, but they still found themselves fighting a couple of lawsuits over a couple of songs, including John Lennon’s “Come Together."
Although “Come Together” seems like a strikingly original record, it resulted in an infringement lawsuit from music publisher Morris Levy. Levy was one of the wealthiest men in the industry, and he owned the rights to many of Chuck Berry’s songs.
Homage to legendary Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry was a rock and roll pioneer and had always been a huge influence on The Beatles, but if they thought they were going to be sued over any of the songs he inspired, they probably didn’t expect it would be “Come Together.” Lennon’s surreal imagery seem a far cry from the lyrically straightforward Berry rockers like “Roll Over Beethoven” that The Beatles covered early in their careers.
However, Lennon had clearly paid homage to Berry’s hot rod tune “You Can’t Catch Me” in the opening line of “Come Together.” Berry’s song included the line “Here come old flat top, he was groovin’ up with me, and when Lennon sings “Here come old flat top, he come groovin’ up slowly,” the source is obvious. The melody of “Come Together” sounds similar as well.
It’s seems clear that Lennon had meant to honor Berry rather than simply copy him, but Levy didn’t see things that way. Or maybe he did and simply didn’t care. Levy was known as a notorious money-grabber, who had reportedly once managed to acquire the rights to the phrase “rock and roll” so that he could collect money each time it was used.
Levy takes Lennon to Court
Lennon settled out of court and agreed to cover three other songs Levy owned, which ultimately ended up on Lennon’s 1975 covers album “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which was produced by Phil Spector. The album took longer than anticipated to come out, and out of frustration, Levy issued a bootleg version of it called “Roots” through his own company, and then sued Lennon for breach of contract. Lennon counter-sued.
In the end, the court awarded Levy $6,795 in damages, but that was cancelled out by the court ruling that Lennon was due $84,912.96. Hard to believe that “old flat top” could cause quite so much trouble!
