Author’s Note: Cryptomnesia (musically speaking) is one song distinctly reminiscent of another song, almost as if one musician was listening to the other’s work as he or she was composing a new song.
Required Reading: In the first installment of A Case of Cryptomnesia, we discussed a prominent district court case, and why Mat Kearney and Ben Rector maybe need to be less enthusiastic about each other’s work.
We now consider the case of English band Doves vs. East Coast Americana crooner Jay Nash, and the first eight measures of their songs “There Goes the Fear” and “If I Was a Ghost,” respectively.
While the two approaches are vastly different; (Doves’ intro features twangy, jingle-belled vamps, while Nash’s intro is soft and buttery guitar picking) each song waits for the listener to pound his or her head against the wall and exclaim ‘Where have I heard this before?!’. (more…)
