It's called King Kong and is on the Mother's album Uncle Meat released in 1969. Of course Lennon stole it, unknowingly maybe, but it is a Zappa song nevertheless.
Saying that John Lennon stole King Kong is like saying that a Saudi Sheik stole a buck from a New York bum. Ridiculous... The only reason why we are discussing this song now is because John Lennon played it. Would be completely forgotten otherwise.
The song is called King Kong. Lennon called it Jam Rag and claimed partial publishing for it as a jam when it is clearly a composed piece. King Kong had already been released on Zappa's Lumpy Gravy (1968) and Uncle Meat (1969) and it had been a staple of his sets prior to this. It was a signature tune, it would be like ripping off Imagine.
Comparing King Kong with Imagine is ridiculous. Neither FZ nor JL could help to make King Kong popular or influential, and unlike Imagine, it is only known to a handful of all farts and freaks. Zappa benefited way, way more from sharing the same stage with John Lennon.
@S_Bellew No one benefited from the event. Heard the tape, Yoko botched it with a lot of selfish self-indulgent vocal improv. Could have worked if she was actually interacting with the band instead of shouting over them. Frank clearly gave up, directed the band to say Scumbag repeatedly and the band left her alone on stage to play to fading feedback. The Sometime in New York album was an utter flop and actually signalled a decline in Lennon sales and overall relevance. Sadly, Double Fantasy would have been his comeback record. Alas, it was number 1 with a bullet, and people were able to get nostalgic about a man whose career had been on the downslope. Frank released the performances 20 years later on another low-seller: Playground Psychotics. But that's show biz, folks.
@@jordil6152 - disagree. Unlike Lennon, Zappa got a lot of publicity from it. The song is average at best. Don't paint it as a masterpiece. It's a midget compared to what Lennon wrote. All Zappa wonted when he decided to knock Lennon, posthumously, was more publicity.
@S_Bellew Your mileage may vary, but I remember what people thought about Lennon before he was murdered. He was dismissed as a washed up Beatle by the end, Yoko ruined him, etc. Not sure how much publicity Frank could get out of one encore, it's not like Lennon joined the band or did anything else with him. Especially since Frank never bothered to include the recording on a contemporaneous release. As far as King Kong goes, it may not be a chart topper, but it clearly held personal significance to Frank--literally adding insult to injury when it was stolen.
It's well documented -- Zappa released his own version of the tape on the album Playground Psychotics, shortly before his death. He even got a measure of revenge by titling part of the jam "A Small Eternity With Yoko Ono". I'm surprised that you aren't mentioning that John was successfully sued for plagiarism by Chuck Berry's publisher.
No he wasn't. They settled out of court. Big deal, have a look at Wikipedia. Every song they talk about has elements of something else. There's no such thing as an original song.
I believe Frank was very jealous of The Beatles success. Just by the way he talks about Meeting John, he could really give two shits! @@grimmertwin2148
😂-as a musician myself every concert I have gone to since 1978. I always examined all the musicians paddles, guitars, amps drums, and so on rhythms how they change how they perform I take all that as a formula and make it my own. yes, you do have to steal from other musicians, and you make it your style your way ❤❤
And you are incorrect, Lennon is also known for possibly take chuck Berry's song when he wrote "Come Together". A song that Paul McCartney also acknowledges that Lennon "borrowed".
There is another line between Zappa and Lennon: 🎵 "Just because the sun wants a place in the sky - no reason to assume, I wouldn't give her a try.🎵" Dinah moe hum. Lennon used that too on sometimes in NYC.
This isn't what he meant lol. There's a difference between influence (which Paul was talking about) and jamming with someone else on their song and then changing the name of the recording and claiming you wrote it. Not that Lennon needed to, but he stole this one and it wasn't the right thing to do.
@@watashiiru Elvis didn't steal anything from black musicians. If anything, he popularized black music with a white audience, which did wonders for the careers of many black musicians. The likes of Little Richard and James Brown praised him and BB King literally said he didn't steal music. He was influenced by black music and played the music he loved. He never claimed to have written it or that he invented Rock and Roll. In fact, it was the opposite. He said the genre was there long before he was. There's a difference between claiming you wrote something you didn't and doing covers of music you love. Nobody ever accused the blues musicians of the Mississippi delta of stealing from each other even when the claimed credit for the same songs with altered lyrics. By tradition, music has always been a game of influence and Elvis is no different.
@@watashiiru...and Chuck Berry has stolen Louis Jordan and T- Bone Walker too....and all black people has stolen classic music- Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, etc
Both Lennon and Harrison were guilty of this sort of thing. Harrison got publicly and legally called out for 'borrowing' the melody from Ronnie Mack's song 'He's So Fine' by the Chiffons, for 'My Sweet Lord'. He claimed that he'd subconsciously plagiarized the melody. Believe what you like, but while I admired George, I think that was a blatant porky, as the Brits would say. Lennon, to the best of my knowledge, never credited the melody for his xmas song 'And So This Is Christmas', which he lifted from a time honored song called 'Stewball'. At this late date, none of this really matters much, but as a songwriter I've always thought that it extremely tacky that a songwriting powerhouse like the Beatles would be that callous.
Fact-Check ✅ Jamrag credited to Lennon on his '72 album sometime in NYC, is actually a Frank Zappa composition named King Kong ✅ King Kong was first performed by the mothers in 1966 ✅ a fragment of the main melody appears on side 2 of Lumpy Gravy ✅ the classic version of King Kong, a hybrid of live & studio jams, appeared on side 4 of Uncle Meat ✅ King Kong was the title track of a 1969 Jon Luc Ponty album of Zappa covers ✅ King Kong was the song Frank Zappa & the mothers were playing when some stupid with a flare gun set the Montreux Casino on fire, a notorious incident immortalized in Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water ✅ John Lennon stole the song from Zappa, case closed, and that's why you'll never get a sometime in NYC boxset, cause even in death, no musician is more litigious than Zappa....
My guess... King Kong is kind of abstract, in a jazz sort of way. That's not Lennon's wheelhouse musically. He probably didn't know it was even a song, just a jam. In which case, he or someone on his production team, decided to nab it. And then... maybe... John was too embarrassed to own up to the mistake. Zappa could be intimidating.
@@DWHarper62 Yes, it has chord changes. So does Giant Steps. Yes, it has a melodic line. Not the kind that most folks could easily hum, like most Beatle songs. King Kong was one of Zappa's forays into the more modern-type jazz of the time, loose and improvisational, with long solos. As to why Lennon chose to take credit for the live version he and Yoko joined in on with Zappa... I don't know. I was just guessing.
@@Peter7966 I can easily hum the melody and it was not that loose... The melody is certainly played and recognizable and the chord changes don't go away... It's not Ornette Coleman...
@@DWHarper62 The live versions, which he did in all sorts of ways, with extended jams? It's easy to get lost in the more open-ended jazzy meanderings, as King Kong does his big gorilla thing in Frank's unique musical universe. I can see how Lennon might confuse the jam with just that, a jam. And Frank was right for calling him on it. It was Zapps's creation.
watch the too-good-to-be-true documentary "John Lennon's Jukebox" where Lennon freely explains where many of his musical ideas came from. He also mentions that he could neither read or write music which was awkward when his son asked him about Beatles songs.
That is not John Lennon. It his his body double who took his place in 1966, after Paul McCartney died. John couldn’t keep on going and was replaced as well.
What are we talking about here? $5000, $10,000 over the 95 years of copyright? Not a huge deal (or a huge seller as as far as record sales go), but I do agree with Zappa, it is disappointing.
It's not about the money, it's about artistic integrity. Zappa didn't want a dime, it seems like he just wanted writing credits, or some kind of aknowledgement.
The song really sucks! Why on Earth would John steal it❓If he's going to steal a song, make it a Great one 🤣 I think John and Yoko didn't think much of the song. They probably thought Frank gave them the song to do what they want. That's what they did, they probably didn't want to delete the song so they tried improving on it and renaming.. I would of just delete! 😍
John Lennon, like it or not, was avant gard but essentially mainstream. I think he felt that he needed to be more out on the edge (obtuse) musically. After all, no one could argue that his personality was not out on the edge. Frank Zappa was a free ride to that destination.
"Happy Xmas/ War is Over" is ripped directly from a song called "Stewball", which is technically "traditional", so I suppose anyone can borrow. But the same song was also pretty similar to "I Love How You Love Me" by Barry Mann and Larry Kolber.
If you are called "professor", you must know the facts 🙂 This is perfirmance of Frank Zappa and the Mothers if Invention of song King Kong. John and Yoko were only the guests who took the recording with the permition of Frank Zappa for their album, but they credited themselves not Frank. And it is clearly under the law. Frank was nice guy who dud not sue them although he clearly could. Yoko ruined that song(although I don't like it 😂, but like Zappa's work) with her screaming without purpose
I get the impression that Lennon and to some extent the other Beatles had a slippery attitude about lifting music from those who influenced them. Lennon seemed to have no problem admitting to "nicking" tunes here and there, and seemed to feel it was an homage to those he took from. I also don't think Lennon respected or thought much about musical literacy, as he only ever seemed to talk about his lyrical content. That is the polar opposite of Zappa, who seemed to know his lyrics were childish and terrible, and didn't care. Zappa only cared about the musical literary aspects of his compositions. I imagine Lennon would have issued a dismissive apology at some point, had he been really aware of how Zappa felt about it. But I don't think he saw such things as very important. I don't think Lennon was being intentionally malicious, but my attitude sides with Zappa.
A stuff-up I believe. Zappa was supposed to get a credit for Jamrag while Scumbag which had lyrics - albeit not many! - would be just Lennon-Ono, but they got it the wrong way round on the record. John probably thought Jamrag was just that, an improvised jam. He wouldn't have known anything about King Kong. Getting a credit on a solo-Beatle's release - which he got for Scumbag - would mean significant royalties for Zappa. He should have been grateful and just shut up.
John thought it was just a jam, he didn't know it was already one of Frank's songs. It's not like it was a hit , but I can see Frank getting mad about it.
I would believe that it was John’s agent or whoever was handling their music that was responsible for that because they are the most unethical people in the business feeding off the musicians and artists and owning them…???
Agents and contracts. I think you are warm there. Seeing Phil Specter attached to it is a dead give away. John's publishing rights were fair game at the time, and the big game hunters were sniping from the blinds. John and Yoko were under the gun to publish and establish themselves with any material they could claim as performance art (remember, that was Yoko's genre originally) John was in not signed to anyone (so he thought) and was attempting to launch John & Yoko projects
Lennon was a well known plagiarist although he justified it with the entitlement of an 'artist'. He was a bit fast and loose and had issues with impulse control and self-awareness. A real piece of work. Pop Hero. Smh.
@@terrybailey2430 I know songs get pinched. Lennon has admitted that himself many times. I just said it wasn't original. I know Lennon has been responsible for many original works himself.
Of course, just like they came to the USA as nice boys to grab the praise against groups like the Mothers or the Turtles. Music is THE best and the Beatles don't make music, falling into Pop by chance. Who says Pop says money taken from the pockets of listeners.
Zappa's name is listed several.places in and on Sometime in NYC. The album lists silly twists of musicians names who played on the tracks and the names of the other bands involved in the recordings including Frank and The Mothers of Invention. Produced by Phil Spector. Not convinced by the narrator's conclusion that John claimed authorship. No showing that John did the credits. More likely Spector did so, so he could take a cut of royalties. Frank doesn't seem too upset about it. Just "slightly disappointed." The narrator makes a mountain out of a molehill. Frank does say there was an agreement about use that favored both sides. More disappointing is this slanted rehash of a minute of a Frank interview taken out of context.
Oh leave Len alone, cat's dead. It's not stealing it's fucked up relations; Frank looked down on him. Len got him back. Surely didn't need the $ . He was pissed! Len was a bit crazy, he may have gaffed or been stoned and not understood Z's ' deal.' who knows or cared. Oh, Zap does. And his grubby kids.
I'll bet money John's mother convinced him it was their recording because when they perform and record a song, it's theirs, John not wanting to upset his mother would just take a pill and go along.
John's mom got killed in a car pedestrian accident in 1958, a few years before the Beatles were even known outside their hometown. About stealing the song, there is still some question about it that needs more details. FYI, the copyright does NOT protect the use of titles.
oh really! this is obviously clickbait. This song might be important to Zappa, but it's not important to anyone else. It's a rag , a few chord changes they improvised in a throw away b album that is not recorded in the studio but live. John would not verbally take credit to it in a million years. it's a none issue , it's not an important track . On the other hand IMAGINE was probably given to lennon and wasn't written by him - now that's an important track. But it will never be divulged anywhere . it's what's called conspiracy theory
I bought SINYC and was gutted at the time (a load of political crap) and annoyed to spend half my wages on it . . Sold it to a thrift store (second hand store) for pennies.
Jamrag is NOT a song, it is a demonic display of Yoko's inner demonic spirit and insanity. Under a Jamrag video, someone wrote the following (which I think has a lot of merit) - "Lennon and Ono took credit for "writing" the song, which Zappa wrote, to save Zappa the embarrassment of anyone listening to her ridiculous screams!" by Kevin-ib4gv
That's pretty vague...both parties are able to use the track for their purposes. It's a very hurdy gurdy kind of hippie ideal. If you take it literally, you can do any damned thing you want with it. No disrespect to Zappa, but it seems kind of odd to release tapes under that broad of terms. I'm a HUGE Lennon fan, but even McCartney had to call him out when he lifted "You Can't Catch Me" by Chuck Berry and rewrote it as "Come Together.". I mean as the intro to this very well done video shows, the guy has issues and he came by the honestly from the age of 3.
That is not a song. It's a jam. It has random lyrics. Jam, Rag. Scum Bag. They are garbage anyway. Why would anyone want to claim them in the first place, let alone put them on an album?
Most definitely stolen. Listen to 20 seconds of the original: th-cam.com/video/v1ZapVqxcug/w-d-xo.html Then listen to the live Lennon/Ono track: th-cam.com/video/4BDPdquOpnk/w-d-xo.html
A world reknowned artist with a catalogue like Johns Im sure had his fare share of others infringing on his copy rights. At some point, being a watch dog distracts you from your flow, so it makes sense to me that with all his money & fame, he would just let it slide. If he did that enough, I'm sure it would sometimes blurr the lines both ways. especially with all the jamming John did with other artists. Who would'nt want to jam with John. Secondly, some one mentioned Zappa wasn't known for his lyrics, but he was to some degree for his instrimental. That said, writers are like sponges for music. They save notes for anything that might ring a bell, catch phrases, riffs, melodies,what ever. One song might be an amalgamation from decades of notes. Bonnie Raitte & Carly Simon both discussed this in response to their song writing. Raitte would keep a sack of cassettes that thousands of people had sent her on the floor of her backseat in her car. Every now & then she'd pull one out & listen while driving. Some might stick, untill one day while jamming it would come out in a jam. Carly would jot a phrase & sometimes a decade or more later another phrase would remind her of it & she check the notes & combine them. Words, phrases, riffs & melodies are like peaces of puzzes till one they you realize this piece fits with that one, & it begins to look like something.
I love the beatles but they were influenced by a huge amount of music as a huge amount of music was influenced by them they wrote a song specifically about it ha ha . And paying the tax man 😂
I thought that because John wrote Imagine that he should be put on a pedestal and revered for eternity. Seems that he might not be deserving of such status.
@@philblane5752 The great musicians who choose to play the song prove my point. Obviously it's too much for you. It's also much harder to play than anything John Lennon could approach. th-cam.com/video/tXLmjIRVCDo/w-d-xo.html
And you know nothing. King Kong was in fact appreciated by jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty who features it in the title of his 1970 album "King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa" @@philblane5752
Zappa composed many great and memorable pieces and songs, way more musically advanced than Lennons four or five chord pop songs. If that's what your level of musical sophistication is, that's fine, but the notion that because you don't like it, it must be rubbish is a partcularly ignorant and narcissistic attitude. Who tf are you? Nobody.
Wouldn't shock me; according to Tom Wolfe (author of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", a chronicle of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' hallucinogenic trips across America) the "Fab Four" snubbed the invitation to hang out with the Pranksters and their "house band", The Grateful Dead. Strangely, MYSTERIOUSLY you might even say, after learning of the Pranksters and their psychedelic bus, in a totally unrelated fit of creative genius, we got "Magical Mystery Tour". A literally unbelievable coincidence, I'm afraid. 😮💨 Thems the breaks though, there's no short list of artists and musicians whose talent obscured their decidedly less appealing personalities.
Including yourself? Mischaracterizing multiple hearsay (Wolfe didn't personally witness the supposed contact) to be pejoratively judgmental of "artists" in general says more about you than them.
Come Together vs You Can't Catch me (Chuck Berry) and Happy Christmas (War is Over) vs Stewball (a standard from the 18th century) are two more examples of plagiarism.
Get over it! No such thing as an original song. Check out Wikipedia. Every song they talk about has elemts of something else. Stewball was based on something else and out of copyright. That's not plagiarism. The genius of John Lennon with a little from Spector turned it into a classic.
John left himself open on 'Come Together' by borrowing a line of lyrics, otherwise to this day you wouldn't even notice. Not sure why he did that. Maybe he just couldn't think of another line.
I think it was Bob Dylan who said everyone does it! Right after Joan who used to tour with him told either in a book or interview he was doing a little bit of using others.
@@kevinkenny6975 haha You so intelligent little boy Get your head out your ass and be a viable human There's a scary world out there The Earth is Flat and Jesus is a myth Looney? ah yes!
Before I even watch the video, if this is about King Kong and Zappa, yes. Lennon yoinked it.
It's called King Kong and is on the Mother's album Uncle Meat released in 1969. Of course Lennon stole it, unknowingly maybe, but it is a Zappa song nevertheless.
Saying that John Lennon stole King Kong is like saying that a Saudi Sheik stole a buck from a New York bum. Ridiculous... The only reason why we are discussing this song now is because John Lennon played it. Would be completely forgotten otherwise.
The song is called King Kong. Lennon called it Jam Rag and claimed partial publishing for it as a jam when it is clearly a composed piece. King Kong had already been released on Zappa's Lumpy Gravy (1968) and Uncle Meat (1969) and it had been a staple of his sets prior to this. It was a signature tune, it would be like ripping off Imagine.
But Lennon did claim Happy Christmas War is Over but he didn’t write the tune which was written two hundred years prior.
Comparing King Kong with Imagine is ridiculous. Neither FZ nor JL could help to make King Kong popular or influential, and unlike Imagine, it is only known to a handful of all farts and freaks. Zappa benefited way, way more from sharing the same stage with John Lennon.
@S_Bellew No one benefited from the event. Heard the tape, Yoko botched it with a lot of selfish self-indulgent vocal improv. Could have worked if she was actually interacting with the band instead of shouting over them. Frank clearly gave up, directed the band to say Scumbag repeatedly and the band left her alone on stage to play to fading feedback. The Sometime in New York album was an utter flop and actually signalled a decline in Lennon sales and overall relevance. Sadly, Double Fantasy would have been his comeback record. Alas, it was number 1 with a bullet, and people were able to get nostalgic about a man whose career had been on the downslope.
Frank released the performances 20 years later on another low-seller: Playground Psychotics. But that's show biz, folks.
@@jordil6152 - disagree. Unlike Lennon, Zappa got a lot of publicity from it. The song is average at best. Don't paint it as a masterpiece. It's a midget compared to what Lennon wrote. All Zappa wonted when he decided to knock Lennon, posthumously, was more publicity.
@S_Bellew Your mileage may vary, but I remember what people thought about Lennon before he was murdered. He was dismissed as a washed up Beatle by the end, Yoko ruined him, etc. Not sure how much publicity Frank could get out of one encore, it's not like Lennon joined the band or did anything else with him. Especially since Frank never bothered to include the recording on a contemporaneous release. As far as King Kong goes, it may not be a chart topper, but it clearly held personal significance to Frank--literally adding insult to injury when it was stolen.
It's well documented -- Zappa released his own version of the tape on the album Playground Psychotics, shortly before his death. He even got a measure of revenge by titling part of the jam "A Small Eternity With Yoko Ono". I'm surprised that you aren't mentioning that John was successfully sued for plagiarism by Chuck Berry's publisher.
No he wasn't. They settled out of court. Big deal, have a look at Wikipedia. Every song they talk about has elements of something else. There's no such thing as an original song.
Aw, man, that Yoko number was an embarrassment for anyone with ears.
Not true palsy..
Yes there are original songs. They do exist. People can songwrite,yet many songwriters out there are users.
I got to believe Zappa on this one. Frank was always a no bullshit kind of guy.
haha
And he hated the commercial side of the Beatles.
And I cite.
All you need is cash
Peace Monkeys
totally
I believe Frank was very jealous of The Beatles success. Just by the way he talks about Meeting John, he could really give two shits!
@@grimmertwin2148
I believe Zappa thinks Lennon Stole the song.
😂-as a musician myself every concert I have gone to since 1978. I always examined all the musicians paddles, guitars, amps drums, and so on rhythms how they change how they perform I take all that as a formula and make it my own. yes, you do have to steal from other musicians, and you make it your style your way ❤❤
That’s being smart and trying to learn and improve your skills.
Taking the song and calling it your own is a whole different ballgame.
And you are incorrect, Lennon is also known for possibly take chuck Berry's song when he wrote "Come Together". A song that Paul McCartney also acknowledges that Lennon "borrowed".
There is another line between Zappa and Lennon:
🎵 "Just because the sun wants a place in the sky - no reason to assume, I wouldn't give her a try.🎵"
Dinah moe hum.
Lennon used that too on sometimes in NYC.
Paul McCartney said...."all musicians steal from somebody...great ones steal from everybody"
Jimmy Page has entered the chat.
This isn't what he meant lol. There's a difference between influence (which Paul was talking about) and jamming with someone else on their song and then changing the name of the recording and claiming you wrote it. Not that Lennon needed to, but he stole this one and it wasn't the right thing to do.
Whereas Elvis Presley has stolen all good things from the Black Musicians.
@@watashiiru Elvis didn't steal anything from black musicians. If anything, he popularized black music with a white audience, which did wonders for the careers of many black musicians. The likes of Little Richard and James Brown praised him and BB King literally said he didn't steal music. He was influenced by black music and played the music he loved. He never claimed to have written it or that he invented Rock and Roll. In fact, it was the opposite. He said the genre was there long before he was.
There's a difference between claiming you wrote something you didn't and doing covers of music you love.
Nobody ever accused the blues musicians of the Mississippi delta of stealing from each other even when the claimed credit for the same songs with altered lyrics. By tradition, music has always been a game of influence and Elvis is no different.
@@watashiiru...and Chuck Berry has stolen Louis Jordan and T- Bone Walker too....and all black people has stolen classic music- Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, etc
All You Need Is Love used the “G - D - Em” sequence, also: Instant Karma, plus: Nobody Told Me.
Lennon plagiarized himself on 3 of his biggest hits..
Chord sequences are repeated ad infinitum throughout music numbnut. There's only so many that work. And they can't be copyrighted.
Both Lennon and Harrison were guilty of this sort of thing. Harrison got publicly and legally called out for 'borrowing' the melody from Ronnie Mack's song 'He's So Fine' by the Chiffons,
for 'My Sweet Lord'. He claimed that he'd subconsciously plagiarized the melody. Believe what you like, but while I admired George, I think that was a blatant porky, as the Brits would say.
Lennon, to the best of my knowledge, never credited the melody for his xmas song 'And So This Is Christmas', which he lifted from a time honored song called 'Stewball'. At this late date, none of this really matters much, but as a songwriter I've always thought that it extremely tacky that a songwriting powerhouse like the Beatles would be that callous.
Fact-Check ✅ Jamrag credited to Lennon on his '72 album sometime in NYC, is actually a Frank Zappa composition named King Kong ✅ King Kong was first performed by the mothers in 1966 ✅ a fragment of the main melody appears on side 2 of Lumpy Gravy ✅ the classic version of King Kong, a hybrid of live & studio jams, appeared on side 4 of Uncle Meat ✅ King Kong was the title track of a 1969 Jon Luc Ponty album of Zappa covers ✅ King Kong was the song Frank Zappa & the mothers were playing when some stupid with a flare gun set the Montreux Casino on fire, a notorious incident immortalized in Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water ✅ John Lennon stole the song from Zappa, case closed, and that's why you'll never get a sometime in NYC boxset, cause even in death, no musician is more litigious than Zappa....
My guess... King Kong is kind of abstract, in a jazz sort of way. That's not Lennon's wheelhouse musically. He probably didn't know it was even a song, just a jam. In which case, he or someone on his production team, decided to nab it. And then... maybe... John was too embarrassed to own up to the mistake. Zappa could be intimidating.
King Kong is not abstract in any way... There is a melody and chord changes...
@@DWHarper62 Yes, it has chord changes. So does Giant Steps. Yes, it has a melodic line. Not the kind that most folks could easily hum, like most Beatle songs. King Kong was one of Zappa's forays into the more modern-type jazz of the time, loose and improvisational, with long solos. As to why Lennon chose to take credit for the live version he and Yoko joined in on with Zappa... I don't know. I was just guessing.
@@Peter7966 I can easily hum the melody and it was not that loose... The melody is certainly played and recognizable and the chord changes don't go away... It's not Ornette Coleman...
@@DWHarper62 The live versions, which he did in all sorts of ways, with extended jams? It's easy to get lost in the more open-ended jazzy meanderings, as King Kong does his big gorilla thing in Frank's unique musical universe. I can see how Lennon might confuse the jam with just that, a jam. And Frank was right for calling him on it. It was Zapps's creation.
@@DWHarper62 Yes it is a beautiful and simple melody and not at all difficult. Zappa composed many beautiful melodies.
watch the too-good-to-be-true documentary "John Lennon's Jukebox" where Lennon freely explains where many of his musical ideas came from. He also mentions that he could neither read or write music which was awkward when his son asked him about Beatles songs.
That is not John Lennon. It his his body double who took his place in 1966, after Paul McCartney died. John couldn’t keep on going and was replaced as well.
Yes, he also hung out with Zapp's body double who was Leon Rathbone and sometimes Tony Clifton. You can google it.
What are we talking about here? $5000, $10,000 over the 95 years of copyright? Not a huge deal (or a huge seller as as far as record sales go), but I do agree with Zappa, it is disappointing.
It's not about the money, it's about artistic integrity. Zappa didn't want a dime, it seems like he just wanted writing credits, or some kind of aknowledgement.
Publishing royalties are more lucrative than record sales royalties.
@@bajorekjon agreed, Zappa had better things to do than waste energy going after the money. And he was probably against stealing of any kind.
The song really sucks! Why on Earth would John steal it❓If he's going to steal a song, make it a Great one 🤣
I think John and Yoko didn't think much of the song. They probably thought Frank gave them the song to do what
they want. That's what they did, they probably didn't want to delete the song so they tried improving on it and renaming..
I would of just delete! 😍
John Lennon, like it or not, was avant gard but essentially mainstream. I think he felt that he needed to be more out on the edge (obtuse) musically. After all, no one could argue that his personality was not out on the edge. Frank Zappa was a free ride to that destination.
I just noticed that the Playboy interview was in the mag that had Barbara Bach on the cover... Ringo's wife
That’s why we have law courts , yet Zapper never went to court to sue Lennon ask yourself why
Why? (And it's Zappa.)
"Happy Xmas/ War is Over" is ripped directly from a song called "Stewball", which is technically "traditional", so I suppose anyone can borrow. But the same song was also pretty similar to "I Love How You Love Me" by Barry Mann and Larry Kolber.
I thought nobody else noticed the Stewball/ happy Christmas rip off but me
@@richardfranklinmorse I noticed. 😂
Out of copyright, who cares? No such thing as an original song. Take a look at Wikipedia. Every song they talk about has elements of something else.
@@gettinhungrig8806 Plagiarism is plagiarism.
There is another, "You Can't Catch Me" and John's "Come Together"
Goes to Character.
I can hear Yucko badgering John to do it.
Lennon certainly stole the misic for Merry Christmas (War is Over).
If you are called "professor", you must know the facts 🙂 This is perfirmance of Frank Zappa and the Mothers if Invention of song King Kong. John and Yoko were only the guests who took the recording with the permition of Frank Zappa for their album, but they credited themselves not Frank. And it is clearly under the law. Frank was nice guy who dud not sue them although he clearly could. Yoko ruined that song(although I don't like it 😂, but like Zappa's work) with her screaming without purpose
Everybody in this room is wearing an uniform , so don't kid yourself.
I get the impression that Lennon and to some extent the other Beatles had a slippery attitude about lifting music from those who influenced them. Lennon seemed to have no problem admitting to "nicking" tunes here and there, and seemed to feel it was an homage to those he took from.
I also don't think Lennon respected or thought much about musical literacy, as he only ever seemed to talk about his lyrical content. That is the polar opposite of Zappa, who seemed to know his lyrics were childish and terrible, and didn't care. Zappa only cared about the musical literary aspects of his compositions.
I imagine Lennon would have issued a dismissive apology at some point, had he been really aware of how Zappa felt about it. But I don't think he saw such things as very important.
I don't think Lennon was being intentionally malicious, but my attitude sides with Zappa.
Well said Ralph. My feelings exactly.
The Beatles are the greatest innovators in the history of music. They started almost everything. So shut the hell up.
Lennon stole it
A stuff-up I believe. Zappa was supposed to get a credit for Jamrag while Scumbag which had lyrics - albeit not many! - would be just Lennon-Ono, but they got it the wrong way round on the record. John probably thought Jamrag was just that, an improvised jam. He wouldn't have known anything about King Kong.
Getting a credit on a solo-Beatle's release - which he got for Scumbag - would mean significant royalties for Zappa. He should have been grateful and just shut up.
What? As if John would have to steal a song FFS? ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Of course Lennon ripped off Zappa and knew what they were doing.
John thought it was just a jam, he didn't know it was already one of Frank's songs.
It's not like it was a hit , but I can see Frank getting mad about it.
Yes, you're totally right.
I would believe that it was John’s agent or whoever was handling their music that was responsible for that because they are the most unethical people in the business feeding off the musicians and artists and owning them…???
That was Klein at the time
Lennon didn't steal a song, because all that I can hear in Jamrag is a lot of noise.
I thought that sometime in NYC is the worst record in his career
Agents and contracts. I think you are warm there. Seeing Phil Specter attached to it is a dead give away. John's publishing rights were fair game at the time, and the big game hunters were sniping from the blinds. John and Yoko were under the gun to publish and establish themselves with any material they could claim as performance art (remember, that was Yoko's genre originally)
John was in not signed to anyone (so he thought) and was attempting to launch John & Yoko projects
Of course he did. It didn't really do him any good though and Zappa was only mildly bemused by Lennon's actions.
Lennon was a well known plagiarist although he justified it with the entitlement of an 'artist'. He was a bit fast and loose and had issues with impulse control and self-awareness. A real piece of work. Pop Hero. Smh.
Everyone steals from everyone, if you haven’t noticed.
Blatantly obvious 🤷♂️
It’s true… Ihave both albums and the liner notes say it all…
I've postedthis before and I'll post it again: This is the doings of Alan Klein who was John's manager.
He certainly robbed "And so this Christmas" from the old irish song The Plains of Kildare. This was first robbed as Skewball then robbed by Lennon.
Its not robbed it's public domain
@@terrybailey2430 It may be public domain and legal but it didn't originate from him.
@@searchthewind99 do you know how many modern songs have taken their melodies from classic composers. There is barely an original song out there.
@@terrybailey2430 I know songs get pinched. Lennon has admitted that himself many times. I just said it wasn't original. I know Lennon has been responsible for many original works himself.
At least the lyrics are better than "ice ice baby".
Hmm, interesting choice of (changed) title. Every boy in Liverpool who grew up in the 50's/60's knows what a jamrag is.
i truly liked this video
Of course, just like they came to the USA as nice boys to grab the praise against groups like the Mothers or the Turtles. Music is THE best and the Beatles don't make music, falling into Pop by chance. Who says Pop says money taken from the pockets of listeners.
Zappa's name is listed several.places in and on Sometime in NYC. The album lists silly twists of musicians names who played on the tracks and the names of the other bands involved in the recordings including Frank and The Mothers of Invention. Produced by Phil Spector. Not convinced by the narrator's conclusion that John claimed authorship. No showing that John did the credits. More likely Spector did so, so he could take a cut of royalties. Frank doesn't seem too upset about it. Just "slightly disappointed." The narrator makes a mountain out of a molehill. Frank does say there was an agreement about use that favored both sides. More disappointing is this slanted rehash of a minute of a Frank interview taken out of context.
And this not the first YT vid about it. YT has lost the plot afaiac 😊
Oh leave Len alone, cat's dead. It's not stealing it's fucked up relations; Frank looked down on him. Len got him back. Surely didn't need the $ . He was pissed! Len was a bit crazy, he may have gaffed or been stoned and not understood Z's ' deal.' who knows or cared. Oh, Zap does. And his grubby kids.
Obviously he didn't care that much or he'd have sued. Musically, Lennon was a pygmy compared to Zappa.
I'll bet money John's mother convinced him it was their recording because when they perform and record a song, it's theirs, John not wanting to upset his mother would just take a pill and go along.
What? You’ve lost your money then since his mother was run over when he was a child
Mother my ass!
John's mom got killed in a car pedestrian accident in 1958, a few years before the Beatles were even known outside their hometown. About stealing the song, there is still some question about it that needs more details. FYI, the copyright does NOT protect the use of titles.
@@jsanders100Yoko= John's mother.
John should have been in MASH! Although he probably wouldn't have been anyway.
John popularity got to his head ! Sadly that is what killed the beatle , early i started to dislike him, but he did not deserved his end! Sad,,,,
Yeah I'm a huge Beatles fan, but I do believe Frank Zappa
I was expecting your take on it.
Deport Yoko Ono now!
You should know all about this topic.
Maybe create your own slant instead of ripping off Professor of Rock.
I don't blame Frank for letting it go. I mean the recording was truly awful because of all the silly screeching and wailing noises on it.
oh really! this is obviously clickbait. This song might be important to Zappa, but it's not important to anyone else. It's a rag , a few chord changes they improvised in a throw away b album that is not recorded in the studio but live. John would not verbally take credit to it in a million years. it's a none issue , it's not an important track . On the other hand IMAGINE was probably given to lennon and wasn't written by him - now that's an important track. But it will never be divulged anywhere . it's what's called conspiracy theory
Both frank and john should hav been allowed to live longer ,its possible yoko did it .well then its settled then .give peace a chance.
I bought SINYC and was gutted at the time (a load of political crap) and annoyed to spend half my wages on it . . Sold it to a thrift store (second hand store) for pennies.
Who are The Brain Police
Desperate. That's why I said they overrated John
.
Only the GOAT
If that was true, why didnt he sue John?
Why would he bother? He had better things to do and probably thought the embarrassment to Lennon for the ripoff was enough punishment.
3 minutes in, im bored, i still dont know anything about the song that was supposed to be stolen and im moving on...
Happy Christmas War is Over & Folk song "stewball"..............same song. Look on youtube for Peter Paul and Mary singing STEWBALL
I blame Yoko
Jamrag is NOT a song, it is a demonic display of Yoko's inner demonic spirit and insanity.
Under a Jamrag video, someone wrote the following (which I think has a lot of merit) -
"Lennon and Ono took credit for "writing" the song, which Zappa wrote, to save Zappa the embarrassment of anyone listening to her ridiculous screams!"
by Kevin-ib4gv
That's pretty vague...both parties are able to use the track for their purposes. It's a very hurdy gurdy kind of hippie ideal. If you take it literally, you can do any damned thing you want with it. No disrespect to Zappa, but it seems kind of odd to release tapes under that broad of terms. I'm a HUGE Lennon fan, but even McCartney had to call him out when he lifted "You Can't Catch Me" by Chuck Berry and rewrote it as "Come Together.". I mean as the intro to this very well done video shows, the guy has issues and he came by the honestly from the age of 3.
It's a well recognised Zappa composition. He didn't co write it with Lennon or anyone else.
I think John was still young enough to make bad decisions at that point and this was one of them. He should have known better.
Yoko
@@FFGG22E Yeah. She certainly didn’t help.
That is not a song. It's a jam. It has random lyrics. Jam, Rag. Scum Bag. They are garbage anyway. Why would anyone want to claim them in the first place, let alone put them on an album?
Yes
Zappa used the name King Kong without proper permission from Kong. Where's the outrage? At least Lennon came up with a better song title.
No excuse homeboy
It’s pronounced Some TIME in New York City, like spending some time there.
Or STINYC for short, pronounced 'stink'
@@gettinhungrig8806 Yeah that too
Most definitely stolen. Listen to 20 seconds of the original: th-cam.com/video/v1ZapVqxcug/w-d-xo.html Then listen to the live Lennon/Ono track: th-cam.com/video/4BDPdquOpnk/w-d-xo.html
Did anyone actually like that song?
A world reknowned artist with a catalogue like Johns Im sure had his fare share of others infringing on his copy rights. At some point, being a watch dog distracts you from your flow, so it makes sense to me that with all his money & fame, he would just let it slide. If he did that enough, I'm sure it would sometimes blurr the lines both ways. especially with all the jamming John did with other artists. Who would'nt want to jam with John. Secondly, some one mentioned Zappa wasn't known for his lyrics, but he was to some degree for his instrimental. That said, writers are like sponges for music. They save notes for anything that might ring a bell, catch phrases, riffs, melodies,what ever. One song might be an amalgamation from decades of notes. Bonnie Raitte & Carly Simon both discussed this in response to their song writing. Raitte would keep a sack of cassettes that thousands of people had sent her on the floor of her backseat in her car. Every now & then she'd pull one out & listen while driving. Some might stick, untill one day while jamming it would come out in a jam. Carly would jot a phrase & sometimes a decade or more later another phrase would remind her of it & she check the notes & combine them. Words, phrases, riffs & melodies are like peaces of puzzes till one they you realize this piece fits with that one, & it begins to look like something.
I think the version of events is that Lennon wanted to jam with Zappa.
Unfortunately both songs were mindless drivel; a cacophony of rambling noise and pure shit.
Yoko mooched anything not nailed down.
I love the beatles but they were influenced by a huge amount of music as a huge amount of music was influenced by them they wrote a song specifically about it ha ha . And paying the tax man 😂
The song was King Kong
what song is it geez
Jam Rag sucked.
Yeah, John probably did. The well was running dry after he left the Beatles. I mean, he did include Ono in his concerts.
I thought that because John wrote Imagine that he should be put on a pedestal and revered for eternity.
Seems that he might not be deserving of such status.
Don't be stupid.
Grow up boy!
Yeah, that was not smart. The song was great. We know people who do great things are flawed. All people are flawed. Nice try.
Imagine is such an awful hippy dirge, I can't believe anyone wants to listen to it.
Who cares ?? Just enjoy the music of a genius
The 'song' was so bad I would think that anyone would deny they wrote it rather than attempt to claim it as their own.
King Kong is a great song -played by many jazz musicians. Grow an ear.
@@frankpotter5936 It was dreadful. But Lennon's version is even worse.
@@philblane5752 The great musicians who choose to play the song prove my point. Obviously it's too much for you. It's also much harder to play than anything John Lennon could approach. th-cam.com/video/tXLmjIRVCDo/w-d-xo.html
And you know nothing. King Kong was in fact appreciated by jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty who features it in the title of his 1970 album "King Kong: Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa" @@philblane5752
It's a terrible crap album, not worth fighting over.
D
For all the hype and hoopla, Frank Zappa never wrote one piece of music that was remotely memorable. John wrote dozens.
If you're pretending you know Zappa's catalog enough to back this up no one is buying it.
Zappa composed many great and memorable pieces and songs, way more musically advanced than Lennons four or five chord pop songs. If that's what your level of musical sophistication is, that's fine, but the notion that because you don't like it, it must be rubbish is a partcularly ignorant and narcissistic attitude. Who tf are you? Nobody.
King kong was written by zappa
Who cares? There both dead.
Wouldn't shock me; according to Tom Wolfe (author of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", a chronicle of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' hallucinogenic trips across America) the "Fab Four" snubbed the invitation to hang out with the Pranksters and their "house band", The Grateful Dead. Strangely, MYSTERIOUSLY you might even say, after learning of the Pranksters and their psychedelic bus, in a totally unrelated fit of creative genius, we got "Magical Mystery Tour". A literally unbelievable coincidence, I'm afraid. 😮💨 Thems the breaks though, there's no short list of artists and musicians whose talent obscured their decidedly less appealing personalities.
Including yourself? Mischaracterizing multiple hearsay (Wolfe didn't personally witness the supposed contact) to be pejoratively judgmental of "artists" in general says more about you than them.
Come Together vs You Can't Catch me (Chuck Berry) and Happy Christmas (War is Over) vs Stewball (a standard from the 18th century) are two more examples of plagiarism.
Get over it! No such thing as an original song. Check out Wikipedia. Every song they talk about has elemts of something else. Stewball was based on something else and out of copyright. That's not plagiarism. The genius of John Lennon with a little from Spector turned it into a classic.
John left himself open on 'Come Together' by borrowing a line of lyrics, otherwise to this day you wouldn't even notice. Not sure why he did that. Maybe he just couldn't think of another line.
I think it was Bob Dylan who said everyone does it! Right after Joan who used to tour with him told either in a book or interview he was doing a little bit of using others.
This is stealing the publishing and composition rights to a song performed... Not borrowing a chord change...
TO PUT ZAPPA AN LENNON IN THE SAME SENTENCE IS A MAJOR INSULT
Another yt video that takes way too long to get to the point...i'm out.
Usually, I drop the vid after 15, 20 secs nowadays. YT is getting that boring.
Zappa sucks...
Don’t know for a fact. But if true he was a nasty M F.
bull
The Beatles didn't even write their own music
Boy band
Social engineering
Loon
@@kevinkenny6975 haha
You so intelligent little boy
Get your head out your ass and be a viable human
There's a scary world out there
The Earth is Flat and Jesus is a myth
Looney? ah yes!
Never liked Lennon