Plagiarism in music is a hot topic ever since Stella Lefty’s four ripoff allegations. Fellow young singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine just released her new album Angel, and she’s opening up about accidentally copying a Nick Drake song.
On the Switched On Pop podcast, the 26-year-old explained, “I wrote [‘A Car Wash And A New Pair Of Pants’], I showed it to my friend, and he was like, ‘Oh, this sounds like a Nick Drake song.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, God, which one?’ I was listening to a lot of Pink Moon by Nick Drake, but I hadn’t really listened to Bryter Layter yet.”
“It’s called ‘One Of These Things First,'” she continued. “And I was like, oh, so it’s the same key. And the intro chord progression is the same.” She stated that she “never heard that song before I wrote it. And so it felt like I channeled something.”
“We reached out to his estate and my label was like, ‘It’s a little too close,'” she said. “So I wrote them a letter, and I was just like, ‘I am so inspired by Nick Drake… I think he was one of the greats.’ And they allowed us to credit him on that song. So now his name is next to mine, which is so crazy.”
That’s a nice ending. Hear both songs below.
