Looking through an old copy of smash hits from my youth that i have at my parents house, I read a very interesting article from 1987 regarding a debacle between jonathan king and the pet shop boys regarding the similarity of their song "Its a sin" and the Cat Steven's song "Wild World".

I would upload a picture of the article, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this other than linking to a webpage, which isn't applicable.

Anyhow the article states that jk created his own version of "wild world" making it sound as close to "Its a sin" as possible to make the point and that he could find 30 or 40 major celebrities to back him up.

Jk, does your recording of "Wild World" exist and whatever happened to this conflict between you and the pet shop boys who threatened to sue you over the accusations.

It does indeed Robbie and several people (not me) have uploaded it to You Tube - it's also on my Box Set.

I met the boys and they forgave me, dropping the suit and settling with The Sun out of court.

It's a cracking cover JK. Pet Shop Boys gave the money to charity so everyone's a winner you got controversy which sells, Pet Shop Boys got the publicity, the charity got the money talk about win win.

Like Punk Never Happened
Brian McCloskey's Smash Hits archive

DJones wrote:
Like Punk Never Happened
Brian McCloskey's Smash Hits archive

Great website, it's a pity the navigation isn't very good, but great content. They don't have the issue with the article in that I'm referring to from Christmas 1987 with Phillip Schofield (Most fanciable male 1987 would you believe) and Rick Astley on the cover.

I had great fun winding up people; as reported before and elsewhere, when I covered He's So Fine with a similar arrangement to George Harrison's My Sweet Lord (using "Georgie" and song titles in backing vocals) - it was played in the plagiarism case and directly led to The Chiffons winning (and George refusing to speak to me ever again).

Sounded as though it were Maggie, Gloria and Marion doing the background voices on that one (He's So Fine) JK.

Aren't you supposed to get clearance from the publishers before you did a new arrangement of a song? I am getting conflicting opinions on this. What is the exact position?

You can cover a song once it's been released as long as you don't change the tune or the lyric.
Permission is automatic.