Talk:Streets of London (song)

Based on Pachelbel's Cannon?
The article implies that RMcT nicked the chords and harmonic structure from Pachelbel. Is there any evidence that he did so, rather than just hitting on the same chord sequence by chance? The Canon wasn't much heard in the 1960s. Bluewave 16:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah that's the first thing I thought when I read the article; it's really a ridiculous statement. I can think of 4 or 5 songs just off the top of my head that use that same progression - it's a very common one.  Given the limits of western music, you could draw these same sorts of parallels with virtually any song, and compare similarities it has with others.  Completely redundant, and I've removed the reference as it tells us nothing useful about the song. --Bri 23:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * An earlier version of the article (at the time that I wrote my comment, above) stated that the song was "based on" P's canon. This seemed to imply that Mctell deliberately used the same structure. Bluewave 08:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have removed the Pachelbel bit, tagged the similar unsourced attribution to Al Stewart and added a citation to a source which has something to say about the arrangement. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:51, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism claim
I have removed the claim that McTell took the guitar arrangement from an Al Stewart song. Stewart himself dismisses this long-standing claim in Neville Judd's authorized biography, "Al Stewart: The True Life Adventures of a Folk Rock Troubadour" (Helter Skelter, 2006). Judd says that a few months after the release of 'Bedsitter Images', Al brought the similarity to the attention of his manager, who wanted to call in the lawyers for a case of plagiarism. But Al said he'd go around & ask Ralph about it himself. When they met up, Ralph said that he wasn't even aware of Al's song & couldn't possibly have used it as the basis for 'Street Of London'. And there the matter ended. Al is quoted as saying, "I feel that both of those tunes are another earlier pop tune entirely that we must have both grown up subliminally hearing on the radio. I don't think that either of us wrote that song. There's something, it may be an old Brian Hyland song, that's really similar and you know everybody influences everyone else, nothing is original." Notthesameasyouremail (talk) 01:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Sex Pistols covered it?
I think that sex pistols didn't cover that song, and it's an error of some P2P network that has the version of Anti-Nowhere League mislabeled as the pistols

Chord progression
The cited chord progression is piffle. McTell played it in C, the progression being C/G/Amin/Em/F/C/G/C, as can be seen clearly here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cEQZ_HWeYg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8B0:CB9E:EF66:ED20:9043:AF2E:6157 (talk) 10:51, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Songs with similar melodies
An anonymous editor says "Some people however say (Streets of London) resembles the classic hit of the French singer, Gilbert Bécaud, Je t'appartiens." Yes it does, as it does several other songs and tunes, some of which are discussed above. None of these similarities are any more notable than others. I have therefore deleted the comment from the article but left it here to encourage further discussion. Notthesameasyouremail (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Chart performance
Oughtn't there be the chart performance of this song included as with other songs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.160.183 (talk) 21:00, 9 April 2019 (UTC)