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Men At Work - Down Under


babyteen

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It's above lower to a Cockney.

I meant, like when you said, "Toy with Babyteen's ire." Is that like messing with someone's reputation? I can tell you this right now, no one messes with my reputation, unless they want a mouthful of fist. I kid you not!

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Main Entry: ire

Pronunciation: \ˈī(-ə)r\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin ira; perhaps akin to Greek oistros gadfly, frenzy

Date: 14th century

: intense and usually openly displayed anger

synonyms see anger

— ire transitive verb

— ire·ful \-fəl\ adjective

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I like their song "Overkill." Lyrically, it is at least a big improvement and Colin Hay's conflicted voice matches them perfectly. By way of agreeing with B-F, after the second time hearing "Down Under" on the radio, I had heard enough of that.

As for the plagarism suit. There are so many other songs that borrow as heavily or moreso that I cannot see the riff similarity here as something unique and punishable.

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I like their song "Overkill." Lyrically, it is at least a big improvement and Colin Hay's conflicted voice matches them perfectly. By way of agreeing with B-F, after the second time hearing "Down Under" on the radio, I had heard enough of that.

As for the plagarism suit. There are so many other songs that borrow as heavily or moreso that I cannot see the riff similarity here as something unique and punishable.

First of all, you've been misspelling plagiarism. It isn't "Plagarism", it's "plagiarism", there's an I between the g and the a. Secondly, "Down Under" is amazing! I strongly believe that it showed the world that the members of Men At Work are proud to be Australians!

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  • 2 months later...

You're not confused. They lost the lawsuit, and now they are going to appeal that decision.

So in other words, they lost in Justice Peter Jacobson's court, but now they're going to take it to a higher court? If that's the case, I say, "Way to go mates! I'm with you all the way. I love you, you Sweet Australians! You're brilliant!"

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As a proud Aussie, I can say that I don't much like Down Under, and I'm not a huge Met At Work fan anyway. The song is fine, not their best song... but perfectly catchy. Now, I will say the big hook of the song is centred around that flute riff, and that flute riff is undoubtedly quoting Kookaburra. Of course, it's quoted out of context, shifted into a different chord progression, and is really unrecognisable unless you know what you're looking for. Like the guitar solo in Oasis' Supersonic is a perfect lift from My Sweet Lord, but rendered unrecognisable by its context, and Noel had to explain to everyone what it was and how clever it was.

As for finding against the songwriters, that's just weird, as the flute riff is not a part of the published song... it's part of the arrangement, added by a flute player who does not have a writing credit. Tricky!

Quoting... it's an interesting subject. Oasis quoted My Sweet Lord, which was itself found to be a rip-off. But Oasis quoted the guitar solo, which isn't part of the published song either. Yay. Puccini swiped the US National Anthem. Eric Carmen lifted Rachmaninov *twice*. Happy Mondays nicked Hendrix; Little Steve Wonder took Mary Had A Little Lamb; the Beatles borrowed another anthem, plus JS Bach and Glenn Miller all in the one track. The Supremes had multiple hits with a single rhythm track. Huey Lewis, M, and Ray Parker all released the same song with different vocals on top, and I'm sure that Pink, Kelly Clarkson and the Veronicas have all just released the exact same track under different names.

La plus ca change...

Anyway, my understanding is that the ruling is for 5% of royalties from the time that Larrikin Records acquired the rights to Kookaburra (about 1999/2000?), including all future royalties as well. So this does not affect all the money made at the height of the song's success, and I don;t imagine that the songwriters will suffer too much.

A strange case.

LBB

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