THE DOORS’ "HELLO I LOVE YOU": PLAGIARISM AGAINST THE KINKS?

The Doors' song 'Hello, I Love You' was released in June 1968 as the second single from the LP "Waiting For the Sun", which was released the following month.

The B-side was "Love Street", and the resulting 45 rpm record topped the US charts (peaking at number 15 in the UK).

The success of the song attracted the attention of The Kinks' management. An excellent English band, The Kinks started out in rhythm and blues and garage rock, and by 1968 they were playing excellent pop rock.

In the early stages of their career, in October 1964, The Kinks released the garage rock song "All Day and All of the Night" (which reached the seventh spot in the United States and the second in England).

According to The Kinks' lawyers, "Hello I Love You" copied "All Day And All of the Night", and they successfully demanded that The Doors pay the British group the due royalties.

The affair ended with a settlement that neither ruined the reputation of the California quartet nor attracted much media attention.

Let's take a closer look to see if this can really be called plagiarism.

If you listen carefully to "All Day And All Of The Night", you will notice that it consists of three parts — verse with the main riff, bridge and chorus — which are repeated several times and enriched by an electric guitar solo.

In contrast, "Hello I Love You" is composed of different musical elements placed in a different order (chorus – verse – chorus – verse – bridge – coda).

As you can see, the two structures are completely different. So, what does this plagiarism consist of?

The only similar musical elements are the verse and guitar riff of The Kinks' song (listen from min. 0:03 to min. 0:19) on one side and the vocal part of the chorus of "Hello I Love You" (listen from min. 0:09 to min. 0:24) on the other.

These are the two most important parts of the respective songs.

While it may be sufficient to simply declare plagiarism, it is important to note that many tunes incorporate elements, even central ones, from other works without incurring any penalty. How is this possible?

The real reason for the lawsuit was probably not the musical plagiarism itself (which even the Doors had not noticed), but the fact that "Hello I Love You" had become extremely famous in the United States.

Furthermore, plagiarism lawsuits have only been successful in extreme circumstances, which certainly do not apply to our case.

A clear example of plagiarism in music history can be found in the Beach Boys' "Surfin' Usa" (from spring 1963), which had to cite Chuck Berry as the sole author because the song was virtually identical to his own "Sweet Little Sixteen" (a great rock'n'roll song from 1958).

This circumstance is not related to a riff being transformed into a sung part of a chorus, as occurred in the “The Kinks vs. The Doors” case.

Given the above, one suspicion arises: it was probably the prospect of rich royalties from a chart-topping single, rather than sincere musical pride, that convinced The Kinks' record company to file a lawsuit.

The doubt remains that this is just one of those cases where the similarities between two different songs have been exaggerated.

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