Across the universe - The Beatles / Echoes - Pink Floyd

I was just listening to the Beatles' album Let it Be (1970) and in 'Across the universe' i heard the words "Inciting and inviting me". And of course i immediately thought of the song Echoes "Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes, Inciting and inviting me to rise."

Now take a moment to read the lyrics of Across the universe

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open views inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
million suns, it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.


WOW! this whole song is soooo similar to Echoes.
The lyrics are basically identicle and the idea of the song may well be too. The verse in Echoes starting "cloudless everyday..." is the most obvious. it has the same words and ideas just changed around a bit.

i could go on but there's no point, compare the songs yourself!
it seems to me that Echoes is massively based around Across the Sun, i'm not placing any blame on Pink Floyd or anything, of course Echoes is infinately better than this song, but credit should go to The Beatles.

I wouldn't say it was a concious ripoff. I think all of Pink Floyd liked the Beatles. I would say it was maybe a subconcious kind of thing... kinda like when you play a riff on the guitar, and you just can't remember where it came from.

Anyway, they are KIND of similiar. I can see that. But I doubt that PF ripped off the Beatles in a concious mind.

I agree with Shane G.

I would not call it "rip off". i would call it "paying homage" which is entirely different. They paid homage to The Beatles in at least one occasion: do you remember Let There Be More Light and Lucy In The Sky?

yeah, that's true. I can think of one other occasion when Lucy in the Sky was alluded to by another band, Queen in "When The Night Comes Down" off their first album: "Lucy was high and so was I"

Anyhow, haven't we covered this topic somewhere else?

im sure if we looked we could find similarities in tons of songs. Untill this synchronises with 2001 i'm not impressed

"basically identical"??

P'shaw.

Wow, D&C, you read my thoughts. I wanted to make this topic.

Spooky.

I'm not saying that Pink Floyd simply copied Across the universe, but this is definately more than a case of PF having had this Beales song in the back of their mind and inadvertedly using some of the lyrics/ideas. I think it's most likely that they had a discussion about the ideas behind Across the universe and build on that.

Anyway the fact remains that Echoes is a masterpiece and Across the Universe is good but just an average Beatles song. So obviously Pink Floyd didn't simply rip The Beatles off.

I think i read a while ago that first PF wrote the music to Echoes, and later decided to think up lyrics for it, and not the otherway round. So maybe they didn't really know what they wanted to put in Echoes and were searching around for ideas when they heard this Beatles song.

Or maybe "inviting and inciting" is just a good example of alliteration, and otherwise there are no similarities between the two songs.

maybe, maybe not. it seems pretty unlikely to me, having heard the lyrics of Across the Universe.

don't bite my head off about this, but can anyone else hear a SLIGHT similarity between "The Narrow Way pt.3" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"?

Sam

Not me.