Acknowledging an Influence? Or Grounds for a Lawsuit?

I’d like to address a sliver of a huge topic – music ownership. Be warned: More questions are raised here than answered. Ed Sheeran’s fight with Marvin Gaye’s estate and Led Zeppelin’s legal battles over “Stairway to Heaven” are not discussed. Other writers have documented those cases. People have devoted their lives to the subject of music copyrights. I am merely an interested observer. And so …

Not long ago there was a final Jeopardy! clue that asked contestants to name the piece of music heard at the very end of the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love.” The correct response is “Greensleeves.”

The single has a famous fade at its conclusion, incorporating the Beatles’ own music with other sounds, including a Glenn Miller saxophone riff, a quote from “She Loves You,” and the instrumental “Greensleeves” melody. This cacophony accompanies the Beatles’ repetitive chanting of “love is all you need.” After all other music has ended on the record, the lilting “Greensleeves” theme briefly continues.

Jeopardy! was asking about this conclusion to “All You Need is Love.” I knew the “Greensleeves” response the show was after – but I also knew that some versions of “All You Need is Love” do not include the final “Greensleeves” coda. The theme is heard briefly amidst the tumult, but the record’s closing “Greensleeves” melody is absent. Woe to the Jeopardy! panelist who did not own the correct version of this record. It almost seemed like an unfair question, making me wonder anew about the reason for this change.

As with anything Beatles, the answer is probably quite involved. Whatever the rationale, I find the elimination of the final bars of “Greensleeves” especially odd since the excised melody appears to have no copyright ownership attached to it. “Greensleeves” is not new. Shakespeare refers to it by name in his 1602 play The Merry Wives of Windsor. In 1865, the melody was used for the Christmas song “What Child Is This?”
 

THE BEATLES

Every released version of “All You Need is Love” uses the same take of the song – that is, the same recording as a starting place – but some of the mixes differ.

The single of this song was released in mono, the version on the Magical Mystery Tour album is “fake stereo,” the greatest hits Blue Album is true stereo, which brings some percussion to the front of the mix, especially early in the song. It also sounds as if McCartney can be briefly heard behind Lennon at one point. The mix of “All You Need is Love” on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack compact disc sounds like it was completely reconfigured. The clarity is remarkable, but it differs from what the Beatles originally released. Maybe they would all approve – or not care.

The question of different mixes is important only in that the concluding “Greensleeves” melody was removed from the recording after the initial single was released, a version that also appears on the American configuration of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour album. “Greensleeves” is heard on each record listed below but is excised from the conclusion of later releases. What follows is a breakdown of how “Greensleeves” is incorporated into (and excised from) the recordings.

The original 45 rpm single of “All You Need is Love” is listed as running 3:57, which is accurate. The “Greensleeves” melody can be heard from 3:14 to 3:23. It appears again at 3:45 and plays through the end of the record, to 3:57.

The Magical Mystery Tour album version is the same as that of the single, except presented in fake stereo. Once again, the song is listed as running 3:57, which it does, and the “Greensleeves” melody is heard from 3:14 to 3:23. It returns at 3:45 and continues through the end, to 3:57.

The recordings found on the single and the Magical Mystery Tour album are the only two released versions of the song to include the “Greensleeves” theme at the very end of the recording.

The Yellow Submarine soundtrack lists the song as running 3:48. My stopwatch said 3:46. The “Greensleeves” theme emerges at 3:14, and gets lost in the sound collage at 3:23. This theme does not reappear at the end.

The Beatles: 1967-1970 (often referred to as the Blue Album) lists the running time of “All You Need is Love” as 3:57, but the actual time of this recording is 3:42. It also has “Greensleeves” appearing from 3:14 to 3:24, never to return. I find the label’s timing error interesting. The original single is 3:57 in length. Was it the complier’s intent to use this longer version on the Blue Album?

The Beatles 1 hits compact disc does not list a time for any of its songs. This version is also 3:42, with “Greensleeves” appearing from 3:14 to 3:24. It is not heard again. The remix on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack (not to be confused with the movie soundtrack) says “All You Need is Love” runs 3:47, but I clock it closer to 3:44. “Greensleeves” can be heard from 3:14 to 3:23. This remix also does not use the single version’s original closing reprisal of the “Greensleeves” theme.

This is all well and good, but I still wonder why the decision was made to excise the concluding “Greensleeves” theme from the initial release of “All You Need is Love.” And shouldn’t we let those three Jeopardy! contestants get a second chance? Maybe they were big Beatles fans but just owned the wrong copy of the song.
 

CROSBY STILLS AND NASH

Removing “Greensleeves” from the end of “All You Need is Love” started me thinking about other songs that include (and then sometimes exclude) references to other artist’s works. With musicians and managers increasingly litigious over protecting their intellectual property, I wondered about the depth of such artistic territorialism.

One instance of what I will call “influence acknowledgment” is found on the self-titled first album from Crosby, Stills and Nash. Near the end of side two, after the song “Long Time Gone” has ended and before “49 Bye-Byes” begins, we hear Stephen Stills moaning two acapella lines: “You better come-on in my kitchen / Because it’s bound to be raining outside.” A Hammond organ then introduces “49 Bye-Byes.”

I was in 9th grade when I first heard this then-new CSN album. I had no idea that these two lines were part of a song performed and credited to Robert Johnson, “Come On In My Kitchen.” It just seemed like an appropriate interlude of longing.

The estate of Robert Johnson must have taken a different view. They obviously recognized the uncredited song excerpt and had something to say about it. I am guessing that money played a role in the conversation. That’s conjecture on my part, but what’s not conjecture is that Stills’ two-line interlude between songs has been removed from current compact disc editions of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Hang on to your album.
 

YES

Another song I have long wondered about is Yes’ “I’ve Seen All Good People.” At the conclusion of the “Your Move” section of this song, vocalists sing the refrain from John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” These lyrics are in the background of the mix but can be distinctly heard: “All we are saying / Is give peace a chance.”

“I’ve Seen All Good People” was recorded in 1970. Was the use of this nine-word Lennon lyric not an issue during an era when battles over copyright seemed less common? Was its use in the song subsequently grandfathered in? I don’t know. But unlike the excised Robert Johnson lines, members of Yes can still be heard singing Lennon’s plea for peace.

I would call Yoko to ask about the legal specifics of this, but I don’t want to put the subject on her radar. Maybe she doesn’t know about it, or maybe she’s a huge Yes fan. Both scenarios seem unlikely – as does the idea of me getting Yoko Ono on the phone.
 

CHICAGO

Another example is found on Chicago’s 1971 recording from Carnegie Hall. In the song “Beginnings,” Robert Lamm quotes a lyric from Barbara Mason’s 1965 hit “Yes, I’m Ready.” It’s only part of a single line — “don’t even know how to hold your hand”— but it’s clear by Lamm’s melodic inflection that Mason’s record is the source. A brief reference, to be sure, but its inclusion begs the question about what constitutes borrowed goods. Is Mason or her estate owed money for this? Who decides?
 

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Robert Lamm sounds like his quote of Barbara Mason’s hit may have been a casual one-time inclusion. Other songs’ concert arrangements are clearly more rehearsed. Bruce Springsteen has used his hit “Cover Me” more than once to acknowledge influences. Near the end of the Born in the U.S.A. tour of 1984-85, live versions of the song opened with Patti Scialfa singing: “Nowhere to run to, baby / Nowhere to hide.” The lines are repeated as Springsteen begins the intonations of “Cover Me.” These “nowhere to run” lyrics come from Martha and the Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Run,” a 1965 Motown hit written by Holland / Dozier / Holland.

Springsteen again performed “Cover Me” during concerts on his Tunnel of Love Express Tour of 1988. Here, in addition to an arrangement that used the introductory lines from “Nowhere to Run,” the end of this tour’s “Cover Me” performance would morph into the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” The lyrics “just a shot away” and “just a kiss away” were repeated numerous times from this famous Jaggar / Richards song, almost becoming a chant. Both of these live arrangements of “Cover Me” have been officially released.

These Springsteen quotes originate with Motown Records and the Rolling Stones, two large and established institutions who know a thing or two about protecting their copyrights. Did either (or both) come after Springsteen for using their lyrics on one of his own releases – and without giving credit? If so, I never heard about it.

As mentioned at the beginning, I’m asking more questions than I’m answering. One thing seems clear – each of these performers quote works by other musicians because they like their songs. Robert Lamm would not sing Barbara Carol’s lyrics in the middle of his own hit if he weren’t a fan of her song. Bruce Springsteen would not graft Rolling Stones and Martha Reeves material onto his own work if their songs had no significance to him.

These are performance choices that speak to the artists’ own influences. I wonder: Could these records be released today with no legal repercussions? And are the days now behind us when artists can safely point to their own inspirations during concerts? I’m sure we’ll find out.
 

DISCOGRAPHY AND NOTES

Beatles, “Greensleeves”
Officially released versions that include the “Greensleeves” coda:
Original release, 45 rpm single (July 1967)
Album track, Magical Mystery Tour (November 1967)
Officially released versions that exclude the “Greensleeves” coda:
Album track, Yellow Submarine (movie soundtrack, 1969)
Album track, The Beatles: 1967-1970 (compilation, 1973)
Album track, Yellow Submarine Songtrack (compilation, 1999)
Album track, The Beatles: 1 (compilation, 2000)

Crosby Stills and Nash, “Come On In My Kitchen”
Curiously, while the Robert Johnson couplet has been removed from Crosby Stills and Nash’s eponymous debut, it is found at the beginning of an uploaded version of “49 Bye-Byes” found under their 2005 Greatest Hits collection on Spotify. Except the Johnson interlude does not appear on the compact disc version of this compilation. Further, the two quoted lines have been mixed much louder on Spotify than on the original album release.

Meanwhile, some sources give joint composer credit for “Come On In My Kitchen” to Stephen Stills and Robert Johnson. Not being alive at the same time, Johnson and Stills did not write this song together. Whatever legal agreements have or have not been reached, the compact release of the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album does not include these two lines.

One other alteration I find interesting with the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album has to do with its cover art. The back of the jacket originally showed the murky image of a figure looking out a window. This was the group’s drummer Dallas Taylor. The compact-disc artwork retains the original photograph but has removed Taylor’s image from the photo. Seems odd. After leaving the music world, Dallas Tayor wrote a book called Prisoner of Woodstock (1994). It recounts his days as a performer, his struggles with addiction, his sobriety, and his subsequent work as a rehab counsellor. Taylor died in 2015 at age 66.

Chicago, “Yes, I’m Ready”
I mention that Robert Lamm’s quote of Barbara Mason’s “Yes, I’m Ready” may not have been a nightly addition to “Beginnings.” This could be checked by playing the eight live versions of the song found on the Chicago at Carnegie Hall: Complete box set, released by Rhino in 2021. These concerts all come from April 1971. When the group’s import album Live in Japan was recorded 14 months later, in June 1972, the “Yes, I’m Ready” quote is not used. Rhino’s Carnegie Hall: Complete box set is out of print, though it does appear on Spotify. No matter; I couldn’t afford it even when it was briefly available. Send me your copy; I’ll take good care of it.