Sorry I'll stay out of music threads.

A few years after Dark Side of the Moon came out I saw a national student magazine publish a poem that was a direct copy of the lyrics to "Time" except the guy who submitted it had changed "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" to "...the American way." I couldn't believe the editors and staff were so out of touch that no one caught it,

Mr Bojangles, Dan Fogelberg's Old Tennesee & S&G's America (I used to do a medley of these 3 in my singer-songwriter days)

Almost any song from led Zeppelin 1 & 2 & almost any old Electric Chess Chicago blues song.........

Oh, Jon.

Dammit, Jeff, quit being WRONG so often!

Matraca Berg's "Come to Momma" seemingly steals the melody, and indeed most of the song structure, from a Bob Seger song. In fact, she lifts the entire lyrics and EVEN THE SONG TITLE, clumsily replacing the word "Poppa" with "Momma" in a flimsy effort to disguise her plagiarism. As if we wouldn't notice!

The Meters "wrote" and recorded a song titled "Cabbage Alley" which is a note-for-note and word-for-word copy of Professor Longhair's "Hey Now Baby."

In the late 80s or early 90s there was a song with a title I can't remember by Warrant that had the exact same structure and changes as a Cars song, "Bye Bye Love" I think. It's not exactly a standard set of changes and I remember a walkdown the Cars used was the same thing at the same point in the song. The melody was different, but if you could ignore the vocal, you could sing the other song right over it. I assume they covered the Cars song when they were unsigned and so used it as a basis for their own song when they needed material for a record.

Lynn Easton's "Jolly Green Giant" (covered most famously by the Kingsmen) borrows the melody of Don & Dewey's "Big Boy Pete" (covered most famously by the Olympics).

I always thought one of the most blatant was Duran Duran's "Do You Believe in Shame" from Big Thing, which to my ears sounded like a blatant rip off of Suzie Q. However, wikipedia reports:

"A brief legal challenge surrounded the close resemblance of the melody of "Shame" to that of the Dale Hawkins classic "Suzie Q" (more famously covered by Creedence Clearwater Revival). It was judged that there was no intentional plagiarism in this case."

I think the courts got it wrong...

Another similar is Country Joe's Fixin To Die Rag & the Kid Ory jazz standard Muskrat Ramble. To my ears they're almost identical, but Country Joe did win the law suit filed by Ory's estate.

Just a couple of years ago, there was all that rigmarole about Tom Petty suing the Red Hot Chili Peppers because he claimed that "Dani California" plagiarized "Mary Jane's Last Dance," but personally I don't think it's that close.

Neil Young's "Borrowed Tune" is borrowed from The Rolling Stones' "Lady Jane."

Buffalo Springfield's "Mr. Soul" is a "Satisfaction" rip. (Does Neil Young love the Stones or what?)

The Green Day song "Brain Stew" rips off Chicago's "25 Or 6 To 4."

"Cherry Cherry" (Neil Diamond) = "What I Like About You" (Romantics)
"Cherry Cherry" + "Sweet Soul Music" (Arthur Conley) = "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." (Mellencamp)

I'm not sure I agree with this, but my old Rolling Stone Record Guide claimed that The Steve Miller Band's "Jet Airliner" ripped off Cream's version of "Crossroads."

And in a rare case of an artist ripping himself off, there's Chuck Berry's "School Days" and "No Particular Place to Go."

Also, James Brown's "Hot" ripped off the David Bowie song "Fame," although I think JB claimed Bowie had ripped him off.

And Beck's "The New Pollution" rips off The Beatles' "Taxman."

Chip

The Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing" and Salt 'N' Pepa's "Shake Your Thang."

Madonna's "Justify My Love" rips off the Public Enemy instrumental "Security of the First World," from their classic It Takes a Nation of Millions album.

Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" is lifted from The Beatles' "Day Tripper."

Chip

To me, John and Yoko's Happy Christmas (War Is Over) always sounded very similar to Peter Paul and Mary's Stewball.

One of my old Top 40 bands used to do a medley of What I Like About You/Rock In the USA. Same chords, same key, same song!

I have I think an obscure one. Crazy Horse's "Dirty, Dirty" from their debut and David Bowie's "Lightning Frightening" from the Ryko edition of "The Man Who Sold The World". Very eerily similar.

My old band did that, too. The chord changes are the same but the melodies are different, so they're pretty safe from copyright infringement.

"Warning" - Green Day

and

"Picture Book" - The Kinks

(intro / riff)

Which reminds me, Green Day's "Brain Stew" owes a whole lot in the riff department to "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago.