Back in 2014, when Sam Smith’s had his mega-hit with “Stay With Me” (which won him four Grammy’s including the two biggies, SOTY and ROTY, and made Smith a star) it was widely observed that “Stay With Me” sounded a helluva lot like “I Won’t Back Down” — the late Tom Petty’s hit single recorded 25 years earlier. Petty never sued. Instead he reportedly made a polite phone call to Smith; an agreement was reached, and Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne (co-writer on “I Won’t Back Down”) received co-writer credits for “Stay With Me.”
Here we are three years later. Sam Smith has a new album, and his track “Midnight Train” is widely observed to sound a helluva lot like a song recorded 25 years ago, this time Radiohead’s “Creep.” As Stereogum’s Chris DeVille put it, “Midnight Train blatantly and mercilessly rips off Radiohead’s biggest hit, “Creep.” It has the same rhythm, the same basic chord structure, the same verse-to-chorus dynamics, and even a similar tremolo-laden guitar pattern.”
Let’s explore that.
Interestingly, when a Sam Smith track was picked to be the title song for the most recent James Bond film, Spectre, it stole the honor from an originally planned track by Radiohead. And when asked about it, Smith claimed to be more or less unfamiliar with the band’s work, leaving Radiohead fans incredulous and annoyed.
So might Smith have gone back and listened to a few Radiohead tracks prior to writing his new material and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of that seeped into his writing? Sure. But that’s not infringement. That’s just access and perhaps inspiration. Infringement is what winds up on the page. So let’s see what’s there, and we’ll take a close look at the rhythm, basic chord structure, verse to chorus dynamics, and similar tremolo guitar that Mr. DeVille called attention to.
In this comparison by “chord structure” we and Mr. DeVille mean the progression that accompanies the verses, because clearly that’s where things sound similar. There are only four chords repeating in both songs, and the progressions are similar but not identical.
Midnight Train is I iii IV iv.
Creep is I III IV iv.
As we said, “Midnight Train” goes I iii IV iv, which is A C#m D Dm. And “Creep” goes I III IV iv, which A C# D Dm.
There are a couple of ways to look at this. The first is to contrast the respective functional harmonies of a iii chord and a III chord. The former, a iii chord, is perhaps the most functionally ambiguous of the seven diatonic chords within a key. By “function” we mean, how does the chord serve the ebb and flow of the song. What did it follow? What does it lead to? The iii chord’s ambiguity makes it difficult to predict its intent. You need to wait and see where it goes before you’ll know how it served the progression. But that doesn’t mean it lacks function altogether. It’s just uncertain and subtle. In this case it goes to IV, and that’s a common role for the iii. I’m going to call it a “pre-pre-dominant.”
Thousands of songs have been written with just these three chords. I, IV and V. But most song structures use four bar phrases. And often one chord to a bar and four chords to a phrase. Sometimes just those four chords over and over for a long time. And that’s the case here.
Four chords — Tonic, “something,” Pre-dominant, and “something else.”
The fourth chord is most often dominant, the end of the phrase that leads to the beginning of the next rather like a conjunctive adverb.
Here, in both songs, we have a non-diatonic iv chord acting as a dominant. This is an interesting, but not rare choice, the minor-plagal-cadence. In Jazz theory, we’d probably point to the included lowered seventh and lowered thirteenth of V and read these as very dominant scale tones with a strong tendency to resolve down by half step to tonic.
So it’s an interesting choice and both songs make it. Score that one for plausible infringement.
So what’s that second chord? If it’s iii and it resolves to a pre-dominant in the third measure as it does here, I’m calling that “pre-pre-dominant.” Or maybe “secondary tonic.” I think I’ll coin that one too if nobody has already. But I like pre-pre-dominant better where I can apply it because it has clarity of purpose.
Midnight Train’s iii chord leads naturally to the pre-dominant. All kinds of reasons it functions that way. One is that the bass line movement from the first degree of the scale to the third has momentum in the direction of the fourth. But chiefly that the iii chord has two of three notes in common with the I chord and sounds similar but less stable. The most natural resolutions of that instability are either back to I where it came from or half step moves to IV. The iii chord contains two notes which can resolve by half step to IV, and hence, this is its most available next move. Two notes move a half step, the third note moves a whole step, and you’re on IV.
Creep’s second chord is III. Compared to the iii, the III chord has those same two notes that tend toward moving to IV, but it’s most natural function is arguably not to IV but to vi. And the reasoning might be easiest to explain with this ratio: that V is to I as III is to vi. III is, as we say, the V of vi. It’s dominant to vi. Dominant being the least stable function, III most naturally moves to vi.
But here it doesn’t. It moves to IV. It can do that. There’s even a name for it — ‘a deceptive cadence,’ not your first cadential inclination but an available course.
Also III isn’t diatonic. It doesn’t “belong” in the key. This is itself a departure from the norm, again not the first inclination but an available course. (There’s a point coming.)
So “III” is not “iii.” One is diatonic. One isn’t. One leads very naturally to the next chord, “IV” and the other a bit less naturally. They’re not the same and they’re less the same than both of them being called “three” would imply.
Where does this leave us? Creep’s III chord is a substantial creative choice, and iii is mundane. So Midnight Train didn’t adopt the interesting choice in Creep’s progression, the one that more than any other chord gives Creep its character.
In order for music to enjoy copyright protection it needs to be original. And while originality itself can be a difficult thing to quantify, there’s a good reason you’ll hear it said, “you can’t copyright a chord progression.” For the most part, it’s true, you can’t. Why not?
Copyright law is not intended to stifle creativity. We want to encourage composers and songwriters to keep producing new music that’s enjoyable. And while “enjoyable” new music is partly about originality, we like a little familiarity as well — something we can latch onto and understand.
That why there are so many absolutely original and copyright protected songs that to some extent share common chord progressions. Chords and chord progressions are the basic elements of music, “building blocks,” available and shared by all.
And among them, the “I – iii – IV” that Midnight Train employs is about as common as they come. You’re hearing it all the time. Imagine the introduction to the Carpenters’ “For All We Know” (one of my favorite songs ever), or Paul Young singing, “If we can solve any problem, why do we lose so many tears?” on “Every Time You Go Away,” or Elton John singing “I remember when rock was young, me and Susie had so much fun,” on “Crocodile Rock” or nearly all of the Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays.” We could probably do this all day. That’s the I-iii-IV progression, a standard building block. So to that point, Midnight Train is just playing through a very standard progression that can’t be claimed by anyone.
By comparison, the first three chords, I – III – IV, from “Creep,” have a distinct ring. So much so that The Hollies came calling to say “Creep” sounds a helluva lot like our song from 20 years ago, “The Air That I Breathe!” (If you’re wondering, yes, it goes next to the iv chord. So all four chords were the same and the melody quite similar as well.) Its writers Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood, got a songwriting credit for “Creep.”
Can one successfully argue that a less distinct and common chord progression might infringe upon a more distinct and less common one?
Does it matter that both progressions end on a somewhat unusual iv chord which functions similarly to V but is a bit darker and more melancholy. Midnight Train’s four chords are the same as the chorus to the Bee Gees’ “Nights On Broadway,” “I iii IV iv.” No, it doesn’t matter. For a chord progression to be a substantial creative choice protectable by copyright the threshold for originality is extremely high. It would need to be novel. These progressions are unremarkable. The most interesting part is the III in Creep, and Midnight Train doesn’t share in it. So taken by itself, that the chords have the “same basic structure” doesn’t matter much unless the melody were very much the same.
No. In fact, the Midnight Train melody makes very specific use of the fifth degree of the scale, the one that most defines that iii chord’s character.
No.
Yeah, there’s that. The introductions sound the same — a bass and drum groove, sparse, with tremolo guitar arpeggiating the chords. The drum groove is different. And the guitar notes since they outline the chords are different they too make strong and melodic use of that iii chord. But the tremolo guitar itself? It’s a creative choice, but lots of songs use tremolo guitar.
An infringement suit will likely never happen. I predict Radiohead will be asked about it a lot and they’ll take the high road. It’s probably the only good course available to them. That will be that. Meanwhile, Midnight Train is going to be a hit for the same reason the two songs are substantially different — that iii chord and the beautiful melody that they built around it.
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Tiny addendum, the Hollies version of “The air that I breathe” is the fifth cover of Albert Hammond’s song https://secondhandsongs.com/performance/8361 (my fave is K D Lang’s version) and it recently came up again with Radiohead suing Lana Del Rey for her “Creep” soundalike “Get Free” https://pitchfork.com/news/radiohead-sue-lana-del-rey-for-allegedly-copying-creep/
Thanks for that, Saf.