Bobby Darin's "Mighty Mighty Man"

Last night I listened to the first disc of a two-CD set of Bobby Darin titled Purely... Bobby Darin.  Last time I did Collection Audit, I postulated that "Mighty Mighty Man" took some lyrical inspiration from "Good Rockin' Tonight."  This time, I noticed that "Mighty Mighty Man" also has the exact same line that starts Little Richard's "Rip It Up."  The second line in the third verse is "It's Saturday night, and I just got paid."  I lookt up the release dates, and chronologically, this influence is possible.  Little Richard's "Rip It Up" is from 1956 (and apparently many other artists recorded it in the following years), and "Mighty Mighty Man" is from 1958.

Because I found that these two lines match more or less exactly (there might be a "well" or an "a-" differentiating them), I'm more confident in what I said in my post from two years ago.  It seems more likely that Darin took some lyrical phrases from "Good Rockin' Tonight" and "Rip It Up" rather than both of these similarities in the lyrics of "Mighty Mighty Man" being just coincidences.

The Fratellis' "Stragglers Moon"

I just listened to the Fratellis' Here We Stand.  At the beginning of "Stragglers Moon," there's a sort of chant of "She can't help it; the girl can't help it."  I think this might be a reference to Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It," which also has this recurring line.

I don't know much about the Fratellis, so I couldn't say if Little Richard had any influence on them, but the lyric matches exactly and the music is sort of similar.  I think the notation for it is still above my skill level (and I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out), but - musically - the phrases are based on the root, fifth, and seventh (either dominant seventh or major seventh).  Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" is in C major, and the phrase "She can't help it; the girl can't help it" sung to G C B C; G C C B C.  If I have "Stragglers Moon" right, it's in E major (at the beginning, it alternates between E major and F major, which doesn't really establish a key).  There, "She can't help it; the girl can't help it" is sung to B E E D; B E E E F.

Like I said, I don't know much about the Fratellis, so I don't know if Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" influenced their "Stragglers Moon," but the phrases are pretty similar.

The Easybeats' "Good Times"

I just started listening to a two-disc compilation album of the Easybeats.  I'm surprised I never noticed this before, but a line in "Good Times" is "Long Tall Sally's gonna be with Slim," which is a pretty obvious reference to Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally."

Waylon Jennings' "Lucille (You Won't Do Your Daddy's Will)"

This morning I listened to a compilation album of Waylon Jennings.  I was surprised to find that "Lucille (You Won't Do Your Daddy's Will)" turned out to be the same song as Little Richard's "Lucille."

I compared Jennings' version with Little Richard's, just to make sure, and I noticed that some of the lyrics are different.  Jennings' version has lines like, "Lucille, you won't do your daddy's will" and "There ain't nothing to you, but I love you still," where Little Richard's has "Lucille, you won't do your sister's will" and "You ran off and married, but I love you still."  Jennings' alliteration ("Lucille, you won't do your daddy's will") is more concentrated and easier to find than Little Richard's ("Lucille, you won't do your sister's will").

In the "I woke up this morning" sections, Jennings' version changes the lyrics in the repetition.  So the first time, the line is "I asked my friends about her, but all their lips were tied," and the second time, it's "I asked her friends about her" (emphasis added).  Jenning's speaker/singer is concerned to the point that he not only asks his own friends, but he asks Lucille's too.  In Little Richard's version, the line is the same both times.

I think Jennings' version has more lyrical complexity, but Little Richard's has a great rock 'n' roll energy (and he also co-wrote the song with Al Collins, which certainly counts for something), so I don't think one is better than the other.

Neil Young's Harvest

This morning I listened to Neil Young's Harvest.  I'm fairly certain it's only the second time I've listened to it.  In any case, I found a Bob Dylan reference in "Out on the Weekend."  One of the later verses start with the lines. "She got pictures on the wall - / They make me look up / From her big brass bed," which has the same phrase as Bob Dylan's "Lay lady lay / Lay across my big brass bed" from "Lay Lady Lay" on Nashville Skyline.

I'm less sure on this, but I think "Are You Ready for the Country?" starts with a slight reference to Little Richard's "Slippin' and Slidin'."  The first line of both songs is "Slippin' and a-slidin'," and the melodies are faintly similar (although the tempo on "Are You Ready for the Country?" is much slower).  I'm not as convinced on this reference as I am the Bob Dylan one though.  Although I hadn't really thought of Bob Dylan and Neil Young in the same sphere, they do have some similarities (like country influences and harmonica playing), whereas there seems to be a greater distance between Neil Young and Little Richard.  It's certainly possible that it is a reference to "Slippin' and Slidin'," but I'm hesitant to assert it, especially since I haven't listened to this album very much and don't know much about Neil Young's solo career.

Little Richard's "True Fine Mama"

This morning, I listened to the second disc of a Little Richard compilation album.  One of the songs included is "True Fine Mama."  I'm more familiar with this phrase as it appears in Five Man Electrical Band's "Money Back Guarantee" - "It's hard to believe this is my love song / I only hope I didn't take too long / But this here's the point I've been working up to / True fine mama, I do love you."

As I heard it in the Five Man Electric Band song, I thought there were more commas in it: "True, fine, mama."  Rendered in this way, it appears as if the speaker/singer is more hesitant to say it and reveals it only when pressed.  But finding the same phrase in Little Richard's song, I've realized that both "true" and "fine" are adjectives, where I had thought that "fine" was an exasperated interjection.

I don't know much at all about the history of the Five Man Electrical Band, so I don't know if they were influenced by this Little Richard song or whether that's even a possibility.  But in any case, it's helped me make more sense of "Money Back Guarantee," which I've always thought was a really good song.