The Ledge

Go Back   The Ledge > Main Forums > Lindsey Buckingham
User Name
Password
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Mark Forums Read


Make the Ads Go Away! Click here.
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 11-23-2021, 11:25 AM
bwboy's Avatar
bwboy bwboy is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 2,697
Default New Spin article about Lindsey unintentionally stealing a song

Sorry, I can’t provide a link, but there is a great article on the Spin website about Lindsey using a song he didn’t write on his new album. It’s definitely written in a way that says Lindsey didn’t deliberately steal the song and is totally worth a read.

“Meet the songwriters behind the the best song on Lindsey Buckingham’s new album.”

Last edited by bwboy; 11-23-2021 at 11:27 AM..
Reply With Quote
.
  #2  
Old 11-23-2021, 12:14 PM
bombaysaffires bombaysaffires is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: West Coast
Posts: 6,236
Default

https://www.spin.com/2021/11/jordon-...ham-swan-song/

Meet The Songwriters Behind The Best Song On Lindsey Buckingham’s New Album
Jordon Zadorozny and Brad Laner discuss the happy accident
Written By Pamela Chelin
| November 23, 2021
- 10:00 am

Jordon Zadorozny Brad Laner
Jordon Zadorozny (L) Brad Laner (R) (Credit: Emmanuelle Boies, Courtesy of Brad Laner) [PHOTO]


When Lindsey Buckingham released his self-titled record in September, the media frequently lauded “Swan Song,” the fourth track, as a standout tune. What’s more, Buckingham himself told Newsweek that it’s one of his two favorite songs on the new record.

But when Blinker the Star founder/frontman/songwriter and record producer Jordon Zadorozny (whose credits include producing Chris Cornell and a songwriting credit on Hole’s Celebrity Skin), first heard “Swan Song,” he felt like he was starring in an episode of The Twilight Zone. “My thought was, ‘How do I know this song, and why do I suspect that I have sung it before?’” says Zadorozny over the phone from his home in Pembroke, Ontario, Canada.

Zadorozny was driving around running errands on a Saturday afternoon when he began streaming Buckingham’s latest record in his car. Upon hearing “Swan Song,” his brain leapt into overdrive trying to solve the mystery of how he knew the tune when, suddenly, a flash of realization hit. “Swan Song”’s chorus, but for slight lyrical tweaks and dropped one key, was the same chorus as “Mind’s Eye,” a song Zadorozny co-wrote with Medicine founder and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Brad Laner, over 20 years ago.

“Mind’s Eye” chorus:
It isn’t right to keep me waiting
Do you have to hold out on me so long now?
Is it right to keep me waiting?
In the shadow of our mind’s eye

“Swan Song” chorus:
But is it right to keep me waiting?
Is it right to make me hold out so long?
Yeah, is it right to keep me waiting
In the shadow of our swan song

“It was a strange feeling of déjà vu, but a déjà vu where your hero is singing your song,” says Zadorozny.

Zadorozny hadn’t even thought about “Mind’s Eye” since it was written over two decades ago — when his connection to Buckingham began. In 2000, when Zadorozny was signed to DreamWorks, Lenny Waronker, the record label’s president, asked Zadorozny whom he’d like to produce his next record. Having always idolized Buckingham, it was a no-brainer. “It’s something I used to think about as a high school kid going to bed at night,” says Zadorozny. “It was pure fantasy. ‘Out of all my heroes, who could I work with?’ And then it was, ‘Wow, this is actually happening.’”

With Buckingham’s busy schedule, he didn’t have time to produce a full record. But after listening to a CD of Zadorozny’s demos, he agreed to produce two songs which he reimagined and demoed. “I freaked out,” says Zadorozny. “It sounded like Tusk-era Lindsey playing my songs, and I was completely blown away.”



Zadorozny and Laner with Buckingham (Credit: Courtesy of Jordon Zadorozny)[PHOTO]


Buckingham and Zadorozny then went to record at The Village Studios (where Tusk was recorded), and Zadorozny recruited Laner to play bass (the pair initially bonded over their mutual adoration of Tusk).

At the end of the studio sessions, Laner handed Buckingham a CD of songs he’d co-written with Zadorozny, hoping the then-Fleetwood Mac guitarist would cover one of them. “It was obnoxious of me to give that to him,” says Laner over the phone from his home in Los Angeles. “But there was no way in hell I was not going to hand Lindsey Buckingham a CD.”

Out of all the CD’s songs, “Mind’s Eye” was particularly meaningful to Laner, who wrote the lyrics about his ailing father. “The lyrics about waiting are about my father who was dying,” he says. “The song came out of a period of a lot of waiting and waiting for results…grim stuff. That’s where my head was at the time.” Laner’s father died a couple of months after the recording sessions.

Meanwhile, the pair had long since forgotten about the exchange, and Zadorozny hadn’t been in contact with Buckingham since 2002, when Buckingham contributed guitar and vocals to two Blinker the Star songs.

In fact, recording Fleetwood Mac cover songs marked the closest the pair had come to Buckingham in approximately 20 years. Medicine tackled Fleetwood Mac’s “Sentimental Lady” on their last EP, 2019’s Scarred For Life, and Zadorozny started recording Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies” for Arista, a covers album he released in July, but wound up leaving the song off the record.

So when Zadorozny called Laner in September to tell him about “Swan Song,” he was incredulous. “I said, ‘Oh ****, that CD I handed him worked out,’” says Laner.

Given their past experience with Buckingham’s creative process, the pair figured he made a demo of their song years ago, rediscovered it recently, and forgot that he didn’t actually write it. “He’s got years of integrity and no reason to be stealing songs from anyone, especially us,” says Zadorozny.

Sure enough, when Zadorozny and Laner reached out to Buckingham’s management and sent their demo of “Mind’s Eye” along with a photo of Zadorozny, Laner and Buckingham, they found out that’s exactly what happened after Buckingham’s management checked in with him while he was touring in support of his new record.

“He’d taken our song, made a demo himself of it, put it away for a rainy day and, as it turns out, 16 or 17 years later found that demo and thought, ‘This is a cool thing I did back in 2000,'” says Zadorozny.

Once Buckingham returned from his tour, legal paperwork was amicably drawn up, stipulating a flat monetary sum for Laner and Zadorozny, a portion of the publishing, and co-writing credits for “Swan Song,” deemed a “derived composition” of “Mind’s Eye.” Additionally, digital artwork will be updated as well as artwork in future physical hard copies.

In this era of ubiquitous music copyright lawsuits, Zadorozny and Laner are not only pleased the situation didn’t become litigious, but are still pinching themselves that this happened in the first place. “It’s magnificent,” says Laner. “He made it his own, and that’s a thrill. I have zero complaints about that.”

“There’s almost no one else whose album I’d rather have my music on,” says Zadorozny. “I’m grateful to Lindsey for rediscovering this piece of music and I love what he did with it.”

When contacted by SPIN, Buckingham’s management sent the following statement:
“Following the recent release of Lindsey’s self titled album, it was brought to his attention that significant elements of the song ‘Swan Song’, had come from a song that had been shared with him more than 20 years ago while he was working in a Los Angeles studio, producing some music for Brad Laner and Jordon Zadorozny. When this unintentional and inadvertent usage was raised to Lindsey, he quickly realised his mistake and a friendly resolution was made by all parties.”

Listen to “Mind’s Eye” and “Swan Song.”
__________________
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 11-23-2021, 06:45 PM
UnwindedDreams UnwindedDreams is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 5,054
Default

And I thought Dancing was the only old song on the album (and then Time being a cover)!
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 11-23-2021, 07:51 PM
bwboy's Avatar
bwboy bwboy is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 2,697
Default

Thank you for posting the article, bombaysaffires. Very cool!

I think the article was incredibly generous to Lindsey. I mean, I believe it was a genuine mistake on Lindsey’s part, but the writer really went out of their way to slant it that way. Lindsey was fortunate the original writer of the song was so generous and gracious about it. I really enjoyed reading about how he gave that demo to Lindsey, that was a great story. Imagine having a song you wrote recorded by an artist you respect so much.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 11-23-2021, 10:00 PM
elle's Avatar
elle elle is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: DC
Posts: 12,150
Default





__________________

"kind of weird: a tribute to the dearly departed from a band that can treat its living like trash"
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 11-24-2021, 04:54 AM
DownOnRodeo's Avatar
DownOnRodeo DownOnRodeo is offline
Addicted Ledgie
Supporting Ledgie
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Birmingham, AL
Posts: 3,780
Default

Fascinating turn of events. I can easily see how this happened. Swan Song is not my favorite but it's very strong.

Also this is fortuitous for me because I had been trying to find a song of blinkerthestar ("Still In Rome") recently and couldn't remember the artist at all. Great that he's now part of a Lindsey album, but too bad for him he's not in the album liner notes.

ETA: Lindsey really improved on their demo!!
__________________
Joe

Last edited by DownOnRodeo; 11-24-2021 at 05:03 AM..
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 11-24-2021, 10:20 AM
aleuzzi's Avatar
aleuzzi aleuzzi is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 5,983
Default

This seems like bizarre stuff but it’s actually more common than we think. The reason the article slants generously towards Buckingham and the reason the original songwriters do not bear any ill will against him is that the process by which he unintentionally appropriated the song is believable.

Last edited by aleuzzi; 11-29-2021 at 03:00 PM..
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 11-24-2021, 11:59 AM
soul_drifter333's Avatar
soul_drifter333 soul_drifter333 is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 545
Default

This is the 1st I've heard of Lindsey producing 2 of their songs. Anyone know the song titles?
__________________
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 11-24-2021, 06:04 PM
DownOnRodeo's Avatar
DownOnRodeo DownOnRodeo is offline
Addicted Ledgie
Supporting Ledgie
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Birmingham, AL
Posts: 3,780
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by soul_drifter333 View Post
This is the 1st I've heard of Lindsey producing 2 of their songs. Anyone know the song titles?
Here is a thread from 2004 in which it's discussed:
https://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showt...hlight=blinker

"two songs for the band which have yet to be released or completely finished"

Not sure whether those two tracks were ever finished/released.


This track was released and features Lindsey:



"(Lindsey) did the "hey hey hey" backup vocal parts as well as the arpegiated guitar intro which continues through most of the song. The guitar part is actually a comp of 3 separate parts Lindsey came up with."
__________________
Joe
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 11-24-2021, 06:21 PM
UnwindedDreams UnwindedDreams is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 5,054
Default

Anybody know if Lindsey's talked about having tons of demos he could pick from to record an album?
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 11-28-2021, 03:16 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: California
Posts: 25,975
Default

It's funny, because Swan Song seems so tailored to today's events.

But yes, other than OTWS, it is probably my favorite on the album.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


Fleetwood Mac Poster Rogers Arena Vancouver 2018 Hand-Signed Giclee Bob Masse picture

Fleetwood Mac Poster Rogers Arena Vancouver 2018 Hand-Signed Giclee Bob Masse

$39.99



Vintage Fleetwood Mac Artist Signed Poster Framed picture

Vintage Fleetwood Mac Artist Signed Poster Framed

$49.99



Fleetwood Mac signed lp Rumors by 5 musicians picture

Fleetwood Mac signed lp Rumors by 5 musicians

$500.00



Fleetwood Mac / Stevie Nicks  Show  Concert Poster 12

Fleetwood Mac / Stevie Nicks Show Concert Poster 12"x18"

$12.95



Fleetwood Mac: Greatest Hits CD picture

Fleetwood Mac: Greatest Hits CD

$6.13




All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:42 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
© 1995-2003 Martin and Lisa Adelson, All Rights Reserved