Feuds have always been a regular fixture of the music industry, where egos go unchallenged and rivalries emerge from the most unlikely of scenarios.
The Beatles, for instance, seemed to attract a fair few rivals during their tenure back in the 1960s; after all, they represented the pinnacle of that bold new age for music and culture, so there were many budding young musicians looking to displace them from that throne. What’s more, John Lennon was never afraid to give an honest verdict on other bands of the time, leading to a particularly silly feud with one Rod Stewart.
Far from being the much-loved legend of modern day, Stewart was just a young upstart when The Beatles first started making headlines in the music industry. Nevertheless, he sought to deeply ingrain himself in the blossoming music scene of London during the swinging sixties, performing with a variety of groups and landing upon his mod image. It was only after his stint with The Jeff Beck Group and subsequently the Faces that mainstream audiences began to take note of this endearingly anarchic new star, and his solo career is among the most successful and beloved of any musician in British rock history.
Even during the peak of that solo career, during the mid-1970s, Stewart was still largely influenced by those other artists he had brushed shoulders with back in the 1960s. Namely, the vocalist took a wealth of inspiration from the groundbreaking work of The Beatles. This should come as no surprise, really, given that virtually every songwriter post-1970 was endlessly indebted to the pioneering sounds of the Lennon-McCartney partnership.
This influence was particularly notable on Stewart’s 1976 epic ‘The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)’, which bore a striking resemblance to the iconic Beatles track ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, released six years earlier, as the B-side to ‘Get Back’.
These sonic similarities certainly didn’t pass John Lennon by, either. During one of the last interviews he gave before his tragic death in 1980, the former Beatle told David Sheff, “By the way, Rod Stewart turned that [Don’t Let Me Down] into ‘[Georgie] don’t go-o-o.’”
When John Lennon accused Rod Stewart of copying The Beatles
“That’s one the publishers never noticed,” he continued. “Why didn’t he just sing ‘Don’t Let Me Down’? The same reason I don’t sing other people’s stuff: because you don’t get paid.”
Listeners didn’t seem to notice the similarities, though, and ‘The Killing of Georgie’ became a number two hit in the UK, whereas ‘Get Back’ – with ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ on the flip – reached the top spot.
Decades later, long after the murder of John Lennon, Stewart finally opened up about the inspiration for ‘Georgie’. In 2016, he admitted to The Guardian, “It does sound like it”.
Stewart went on to add, “Nothing wrong with a good steal! I’m sure if you look back to the 60s, you’d find other songs with those three chords and that melody line.”
Indeed, The Beatles themselves borrowed a lot of their chord progressions and melodies from their own influences, Chuck Berry being a notable example for ‘Come Together’.
As far as feuds go, the one between Rod Stewart and John Lennon is pretty tame. Although Lennon did seem to harbour some annoyance over the perceived theft of ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, he never really attacked Stewart in the same way that he went after other musicians. What’s more, it would have been a pretty one-sided feud anyway, given that Stewart has never spoken poorly of the ex-Beatle. In fact, it is fair to say that Stewart is indebted to the songwriting talents of the Liverpudlian, even if that appreciation did sometimes manifest itself in apparent plagiarism.
