Close To You

Hi Mike. Yes it’s a great song. I wouldn’t worry about the title though as there are hundreds of different songs out there with the same title. If the name fits, go with it!

1. ‘The Power of Love’

Three different songs with this title, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Huey Lewis and Jennifer Rush, were in the charts in the same year, 1985.

2. ‘Dagenham Dave’

The Stranglers, 1977; Morrissey, 1995.

3. ‘God Is A DJ’

Faithless, 1998; Pink, 2003.

4. ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

Muse and Blink-182 both released albums in 2003 with “Stockholm Syndrome” at track five, and “Interlude” at track seven, notes Lewis James Brown.

5. ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’
Metallica, 1985; the Bee Gees, 1993.

6. ‘God Save the Queen’

The Sex Pistols, 1977, “and the other one”, offers Fiona Laird.

7. ‘Absolute Beginners’

The Jam, 1981; David Bowie, 1986. Nominated by Devil’s Advocate.

8. ‘Come Together’

MC5, February 1969; The Beatles, October 1969; Blur, 1991; Primal Scream, 1991; Spiritualized, 1998. Nominated by Richard.

9. ‘Stairway to Heaven’

Neil Sedaka, 1960; Led Zeppelin, 1971; The O’Jays, 1976 (B-side of “Livin’ for the Weekend”).

10. ‘Who’s that Girl?’

Eurythmics, 1983; Madonna, 1987. With thanks to John Preston.

As for what they had in common with the Beatles I’m not sure. However, their second single release was ‘I Need You’, which was their own song, not the George Harrison song from the ‘Help’ album. George Martin remixed the studio recording for inclusion on History: America’s Greatest Hits (1975)

Their first album America (1971) was recorded at Trident Studios in London.  Although the trio initially planned to record the album in a similar manner to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Samwell (their producer), convinced them to perfect their acoustic style instead.

I’ve noticed over the years while thumbing through sheet music books the title of an old song that’s the same as a contemporary song and wondered how they got away with it copyright wise. So I did a little research a few years back and discovered it was a “fuzzy” area when it came to protecting a song title.

Generally, copyright law protection does not extend to song titles because they usually are short and lack sufficient originality. Therefore, you can (and often do) have multiple songs with the same name, and the first to name their song, for example “Crazy,” does not have the right to stop other people from releasing their own songs named “Crazy.” An exception to this is that some long titles may be found to have sufficient originality to be afforded copyright protection.

If the song was a hit song, the song title could be protected from unfair competition as a trademark under trademark law. A trademark is a word, phrase or symbol that is used to identify and distinguish the source of a product or service. You might think of it like a brand.

And this is why there are copyright lawyers.