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.
😂-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 ❤❤
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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".
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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…???
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 😂
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 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.
Most definitely stolen. Listen to 20 seconds of the original: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-v1ZapVqxcug.html Then listen to the live Lennon/Ono track: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4BDPdquOpnk.html
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.
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?
@@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. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tXLmjIRVCDo.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
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.
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.
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.
@@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!