I’ve had the pleasure of listening to U2′s new CD “No Line on the Horizon.” But I can’t help but notice that the hit single “Get on Your Boots” has a striking similarity to an old Bob Dylan song called “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Maybe it’s just in my imagination; fans of Bob Dylan do have a tendency to see him everywhere!
Let me know what you think.
There’s no similarity, really. Both songs start out with a very basic, generic melody line which is kinda “listy”, which is probably why you are hearing a similarity. There are hundreds of songs like this. Take, for example, Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Hmm … maybe your right. Still, it was the first thing I thought of when I heard the song. The U2-Dylan similarity is a lot closer than with Billy Joel. Maybe because I’ve been listening to Dylan a lot … Dang. I really thought I was onto something there!
Look, you are partially right. The riff which lasts a few seconds starting at the 17th second or so of the u2 song is EXACTLY like the Dylan songin terms of “sound” (production sound, air, room size, voice tone…etc.), so much so that I do NOT think it is a coincidence. That riff repeats elsewhere in the song. Dylan is an icon, and such a reference is not likely to be a coincidence, but not everyone will catch it. It doesn’t matter if someone else points to some other song that “sounds the same” because when the original was done in the mid-60s Dylan was the path breaker.
It intrigues me that you like Dylan, who is in my humble view, a genius who taps into ….a lot.
Of course they did.