Guess what, Joe Satriani? Coldplay don’t think they plagiarized you, and they’re willing to swear on a stack of bibles over it, writes American Songwriter.
In a Los Angeles Federal Court on Monday, attorneys for the band responded to guitarist Joe Satriani’s lawsuit, which claims the multi-platinum British Band lifted the melody and chord progression to Satriani’s 2004 album track “If I Could Fly” for “Vida la Vida,” the hit single from their most recent album, Vida La Vida or Death and All His Friends.
The band’s attorneys reiterated any similarities between the two songs were not enough to merit a copyright infringement claim. They also said Satriaini’s tune “lacks originality.” In your face, Satriani!
Coldplay won a Grammy for “Vida La Vida” this year. In December, the band posted a message on their website, claiming “if there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental and just as surprising to us as to him.”
Coldplay have jokingly admitted to plagiarism in the past, just not when any court money was riding on it. Satriani has been quoted as saying that hearing Coldplay’s song “felt a dagger went right through my heart.”
Satriani credits his rabid fan base for bringing the similarities between Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and Satriani’s own “If I Could Fly” to his attention. “Almost immediately, from the minute their song came out, my e-mail box flooded with people going, ‘Have you heard this song by Coldplay? They ripped you off man.’ I mean, I couldn’t tell you how many e-mails I received,” Satriani said.
Making the supposed copycatting even more hurtful to Satriani is that “If I Could Fly” took almost a decade to complete and was intended as a love letter to his wife. “I spent so long writing the song, thinking about it, loving it, nursing it, and then finally recording it and standing on stages the world over playing it — and then somebody comes along and plays the exact same song and calls it their own,” the guitarist told Music Radar.
As for Satriani bringing the lawsuit to court, “I did everything I could to avoid a court case with this situation. But Coldplay didn’t want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away. Maybe they figured this little guitar player guy will leave them alone after a while, I don’t know.” To help heal his emotional wounds, Satriani is seeking “any and all profits” the Grammy-nominated “Viva La Vida” has generated.
Stay tuned, folks. This could get ugly.
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