What came first? White Horse by Laid back or Erotic City by Prince?

There is no way that these two trax were born completely seperated from each other... One has definately influenced the other...

White Horse was either 1983 or 84 - I remember 'drawing' that song for an art project in school and I left school in 84, so that's the latest it can have been released. I'm not entirely sure when Erotic City was released (shame on me ) but I think it was 1984 and my gut feeling is that it was after White Horse.

As far as the two tracks influencing each other - sorry, I don't see it, to me they're entirely different.
[Edited 11/25/05 4:07am]

'White Horse' originates from 1983, although its copyright registration in the US declares the music having been first made available in March 1984.

Prince recorded 'Erotic City (Make Love Not War Erotic City Come Alive)' in 1984 (Uptown's 'The Vault attributes the recording variously to February and March, 1984). It was released in July 1984.


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[Edited 11/25/05 8:19am]

AsylumUtopia said:

Have another listen and play the two back to back... Even just the fist 20 seconds of each... You will hear how similar the two are, Am I the only one that thinks this?

although I agree they are two very different songs, they seem to come from the same ilk..

Rebeljuice said:

Yeah, I do need to do that. The last time I heard White Horse was at least a couple of years ago. I'll dig it out this evening and compare them.

AsylumUtopia said:

Cool... let me know what you think...

Rebeljuice said:

I will.

It it may take me a while to find it though.

I thought that maybe I had it on vinyl but now that I think about it I'm pretty sure I don't - I only remember buying Sunshine Reggae on vinyl.

I am sure I have it on cassette somewhere though - no doubt on one of about 50 cassettes I have entitled 'Various Volume One'.

If it comes to it, I've found it on Amazon so I can listen to a sample of it there.

AsylumUtopia said:

otherwise i can just email you the mp3...

Rebeljuice said:

check your orgnotes.

Well, it only took one listen to hear what you're talking about, and you're dead right - there is an uncanny similarity between the two songs, it's most noticeable in the first 30 seconds of White Horse. Given that White Horse is probably the earlier of the two, if any plagiarism was involved, it was Prince who did the thieving!

Although the two are so similar, I doubt that one was copied from the other. There's a song (can't remember the name of it now) by a band called Woodstar (who you've probably never heard of and are unlikely to now as they've split up) which came out well before David Bowie's 'Reality'. The first time I listened to Reality I was amazed how similar 'New Killer Star' was to this Woodstar song - if you played them both you wouldn't be able to tell which was which until the vocals start. I'm pretty sure that Bowie wouldn't have heard of Woodstar (although you never know) so I doubt that he was 'borrowing' their sound. I think it's just one of those coincidences that seem to happen, like when people in different parts of the world come up with the same inventions at the same time, completely independently of and unaware of each other.

Still though, the riff in Erotic City is so similar to (although not quite the same as) White Horse, it does make you wonder.

It was great to hear White Horse again, and thanks for saving me the torture of having to sift through my collection of 'various volume one''s to find it. It was obviously far longer than my estimated 'couple of years' since I last heard it, otherwise I would've spotted the similarity myself before now.
[Edited 11/29/05 3:50am]

Laid Back's "White Horse" was first. Then came Prince's "Erotic City". Even a few years later, two more songs had this sound.....The Bronner Brothers "That's It, Don't Stop" and Angela Winbush's "Run To Me".

Exactly. All the DJs used to mix these two songs back in the day.