Paul Stanley Doesn’t Think Bruce Springsteen Ripped Off Kiss’ ‘I Was Made for Lovin’ You’
Paul Stanley has given his thoughts in the "Stairway to Heaven" trial that dominated headlines over the past two weeks. To make his point, he referenced a similarity between one of Kiss' highest-charting singles and a Bruce Springsteen song.
Speaking to Russ Rollins of RealRadio 104.1 in Orlando, Fla., (embedded above), Stanley said, "A lot of times it's really unfair, because there are a certain amount of notes and they only get jumbled so many different ways. There's a Springsteen song that sounds like... There's a part of the song that sounds like 'I Was Made For Lovin' You,' so I'm sure he wasn't sitting around listening to that. But it finds its way into everybody's music. You can't come down on everybody for their creativity."
Stanley is talking about "Outlaw Pete," the opening track from Springsteen's 2009 album Working on a Dream. But apart from a few melody lines and a running time of approximately eight minutes, the two songs don't have much in common. "I Was Made for Lovin' You" is a disco tune about wanting sex while "Outlaw Pete" is a Western epic about the life of a boy who “at six months old [had] done three months in jail.” Springsteen and illustrator Frank Caruso turned the song into a picture book in 2014.
But Stanley otherwise didn't have much of an opinion on the whether or not the suit was valid, only that it was "pretty strange that this lawsuit came 40-plus years after the fact." However, as a songwriter who holds a number of lucrative copyrights, he added that he was "watching [the trial] as much as everyone else is."
On Thursday, a jury ruled that Led Zeppelin did not steal "Stairway to Heaven" from Spirit's "Taurus." The suit was filed by Spirit bassist Mark Andes through the estate of guitarist Randy California, who wrote "Taurus."
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