Rip off Rod? No Sir.

Rod gives Ewan McColl and John McLaughlin credits on Blood Red Roses for elements of songs he has taken and built on. It’s not always been the case.

It seems to be increasingly common for songwriters to be accused of plagiarism. I guess there are only so many chord sequences available and it’s easy for something heard to lodge in the mind only to surface later as an assumed original idea (for example, back in 1982 Robert Palmer thought his Some Guys Have all the Luck was a new song until he heard the original by The Persuaders on the radio in a store near the studio). Rod is not immune to this phenomenon either. It must be said though that there is no evidence of Rod ever intentionally nicking anything for which royalties should have been paid to another artist

Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? is the highest profile of Rod’s copyright “incidents”. Well documented at this stage – and Rod both donated royalties to charity and gave Jorge Benn a songwriting credit on She Won’t Dance with Me a couple of years later by way of apology and compensation. The song is also noteworthy for Rod using the string arrangement from Bobby Womack’s “If you want my love (put something down on it)” as a hook. Rod has stated that you can nick strings like that without issue so he is playing by the rules.

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