Submitted by Michael
Have a listen to the verse in Bon Jovi‘s 1989 power ballad “I’ll Be There For You” and the verse of The Beatles “Don’t Let Me Down” (1969). And while you’re listening, here’s a delightful tidbit via wikipedia:
The verses have an eerily and uncredited similarity (both musically and melodically) to John Lennon’s Beatles’ track ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ (recorded during the Get Back sessions) and the chorus was supposedly culled from an unreleased song by Joel Ellis of Cats in Boots and Heavy Bones. Joel Ellis has said that Lehua Reid (Richie Sambora’s ex-fiancée) regaled him with anecdotes regarding Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora ‘sitting at the piano for hours with a box full of tapes they got from people and going through the songs looking for stuff they could rip off and laughing about it, your [Ellis'] song was played over and over and over’.
Read more at wikipedia
I’m also very intrigued by this Joel Ellis song as well. If anyone can get a hold of it please send it my way.
Later towards the end of CIB[Cats In Boots] I started dating Richie [Sambora]‘s ex-fiancee Lehua Reid, one night we were laying around listening to old tapes of The Hoax and that song came on and she lit up and looked at me saying “…this is you??!!” “I remember John and Richie sitting at the piano for hours with a box full of tapes they got from people and going through the songs looking for stuff they could rip off and laughing about it, your song was played over and over and over….” Well, the rest is old news.
Excerpted from this 2006 interview
