Listen for yourself! It's clear. http://www.youtube.com/wa...XaB-CzL-Yc

The bass line.

I've become a huge fan of the Beatles in the past year, as I've tried to get away from Top 40 radio. I've listened to this song quite a few times, but it wasn't until I heard this version that I payed attention to the bass line.

I stopped and laughed.

This isn't an outright theft, but the influence is certainly there.

Thoughts?? Actually it just makes me love Prince and the Beatles that much more. Imagine them collaborating in their prime. Wow.

I'm not really hearing it.

But I love these isolated Beatles tracks--the bass ones are always great fun. Paul's just all over the place, but you really don't hear it in the full mix. I listened to the isolated vocals for the whole last half of Abbey Road yesterday--that was cool. There were some isolated Prince vocal tracks bouncing around a while back--obviously gone now--even for some pretty obscure tracks. I think "Lavaux" was one of them, and maybe "GlassCutter." Even on throwaway songs, there were cool bits.

I thought this thread was going to be ridiculous, but yeah, there's a similarity there once you listen to the bass line this way. I am skeptical Prince really got the idea for it from this song, but who knows.

I think it's fairly clear. Who knows if he got the base line from this song, but it's practically identical!

I mean... IDENTICAL... once the bass kicks in.

If Prince denied it, it would be kinda like Vanilla Ice saying that Ice Ice Baby is different from Under Pressure because of his small change to the bass line.

Just sayin'. Both tunes are masterpieces, to say the least.

MantuaPharoah said:

I think it's fairly clear. Who knows if he got the base line from this song, but it's practically identical!

I mean... IDENTICAL... once the bass kicks in.

If Prince denied it, it would be kinda like Vanilla Ice saying that Ice Ice Baby is different from Under Pressure because of his small change to the bass line.

Just sayin'. Both tunes are masterpieces, to say the least.

I haven't relistened to "Purple Rain" (and paid special attention to the bass, which I can't really remember) since you posted this. But I never really thought of the bass as being significant in either song--I had no idea so much was going on with it in "Here Comes the Sun." However, "Under Pressure" and "Ice Ice Baby" are the bass, and not much else. So that would be a bit different.

I honestly can't work up the will to listen to "Purple Rain" right now. I will eventually.

[Edited 9/11/13 12:25pm]

Ohh lawrd............

MantuaPharoah said:

I think it's fairly clear. Who knows if he got the base line from this song, but it's practically identical!

I mean... IDENTICAL... once the bass kicks in.

If Prince denied it, it would be kinda like Vanilla Ice saying that Ice Ice Baby is different from Under Pressure because of his small change to the bass line.

Just sayin'. Both tunes are masterpieces, to say the least.

They're not identical. There's a similar musical idea involved at the end of the progression on both songs, but that doesn't make them "identical" by any definition of the word.

They are nothing alike.

tobydavies said:

They are nothing alike.

Agreed. I went into this open-minded and I see NO similarities. "The first words of the song names both end in E and the last words end in N"!!

Graycap23 said:

Ohh lawrd............

exactly my thoughts

Descending a major scale in music is extremely common.