I decided to reach into one of my two 45s cases, eyes closed, and pull a random record. Of course it ended up like this, and I don’t even have that many Beatles records.
Two great songs by George Harrison (“My Sweet Lord” and “Isn’t It a Pity”), the first of which landed him in a lawsuit (and because of which he later wrote “This Song”).
I’m in the middle of reading a Paul McCartney biography and I didn’t realize before that the Apple logo was absolutely a result of Sir Paul being introduced to the work of artist Rene Magritte in the 1960s. Art inspiring more art always makes me happy.
But it can be very hard to know what we absorb subconsciously–creative people are sponges and over years and years of hearing, reading, and seeing other creatives’ works, it can be hard to untangle what is homage, coincidental, and plagiarism/theft. I get frustrated a lot when I write and then I see a movie I’ve never seen that has features so much like what I’ve written–but my writing pre-dated the movie.
Tim always reminds me that there’s nothing new under the sun.