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Thread started 12/29/07 1:57am

Flo6

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Inspiration or plagiarism?

Following a thread here earlier on about Alicia Keys's taking [perhaps too much?] of her inspiration from Prince, incl. from Purple Rain, and another similar-themed thread on Blue Limousine, I'm wondering if anybody has noticed that German techno producer Timo Maas' second personal album, 'Pictures' [2005] has a track called 'First Day' that repeats word for word Prince's 'The Rest of my Life'.

Prince's song goes '2day is the first day of the rest of my life'... and that is exactly, literally the main lyrics of Maas' techno piece.
What's that supposed to be? Inspiration? Plagiarism? Somebody enlighten me!

I find interesting too that in all the reviews of Maas' album that I've read, I never found anything that mentions a possible borrowing.

I'm just wondering if anybody has noticed this. Maas' 'First Day' track was all over the place here in Moscow last year, both on the airwaves and in the clubbing scene, but I'm not sure about the US & other countries.
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Reply #1 posted 12/29/07 2:15am

purplepolitici
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i've never heard the song, so i can't really say. "today is the first day of the rest of my life" is a very popular expression, so i don't know.
For all time I am with you, you are with me.
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Reply #2 posted 12/29/07 4:44am

langebleu

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Flo6 said:

Following a thread here earlier on about Alicia Keys's taking [perhaps too much?] of her inspiration from Prince, incl. from Purple Rain, and another similar-themed thread on Blue Limousine, I'm wondering if anybody has noticed that German techno producer Timo Maas' second personal album, 'Pictures' [2005] has a track called 'First Day' that repeats word for word Prince's 'The Rest of my Life'.

Prince's song goes '2day is the first day of the rest of my life'... and that is exactly, literally the main lyrics of Maas' techno piece.
What's that supposed to be? Inspiration? Plagiarism? Somebody enlighten me!

As mentioned above, this phrase was adopted and commonly used during the 80's particularly within the self-help community.

It's origins certainly predate this and was around in the '50s at least:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w..._(theater)

.
ALT+PLS+RTN: Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.
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Reply #3 posted 12/29/07 6:00am

Tame

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I was gonna say the same thing...That is kind of known to be a repetitive statement. I guess you wouldn't call it a cliche...like, "To coin a phrase"

There are only so many ways of saying some things. When you think about it, How can a song say, "I love you." without having all of the common concepts about that action.

Prince has always said, "I love you" in a beautiful way. You could stamp, many of Prince's lyrics on a greeting card, and Hallmark and American Greetings would be impressed.
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight...
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Reply #4 posted 12/29/07 9:33am

langebleu

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Tame said:

You could stamp, many of Prince's lyrics on a greeting card, and Hallmark and American Greetings would be impressed.

I can think of some lyrics which wouldn't work quite as well too

biggrin
ALT+PLS+RTN: Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.
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Reply #5 posted 12/29/07 11:42pm

Flo6

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Well thank you everybody - I'm not a native English speaker, so that explains my confusion. I actually thought that Prince had come up with the idea/concept - oops!..
Anyway, interesting to see that the expression goes back as late as the 1950s.
So I guess we can call it a new twist on an established concept, or inspirational reappropriation...
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