History of the song "Anybody Seen My Baby?" - The Rolling Stones (1997)
Содержание
The similarity of musical masterpieces belonging to different authors is a very common phenomenon. It often involves scandals, plagiarism and, most unpleasantly, litigation in court. A similar thing happened with the song "Anybody Seen My Baby?", the chorus music of which is similar to the musical theme of "Constant Craving" by Katharine Dawn Lang. However, the members of the Rolling Stones got out of it and avoided the accusations, delicately and magnanimously conceding the primacy to a woman.
How the song was created
The composition "Anybody Seen My Baby?" was composed for the album Bridges to Babylon by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. There is a point of view that the muse for this masterpiece was actress Mary Badham, who received an Oscar nomination for playing the role of Glasstick (Jean-Louise Finch) in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. It is rumoured that she had a relationship with Jagger, only briefly, after which Mary left her friend. Nostalgia for this happy time may have been the basis for the song.
As the song was nearing completion and the final audition was underway, something began to come to mind for the Rolling Stones, but somehow vaguely.
A little while later, Keith Richards put this song on for his daughter and her girlfriend. And as the chorus went on, they both sang along to the lines of "Constant Craving": the words matched the tempo and rhythm exactly.
Both authors swore that they knew nothing about this song. We'll leave it at that. Anyway, the song was quite popular, since it won a Grammy Award for Best Female Vocalist and the music video won an MTV award.
It is not so easy to explain how it turned out the way it did. The authors may have heard the composition occasionally and unconsciously adopted the melody. But coincidence should not be discounted either.
The Rolling Stones took no chances. They mentioned Catherine Dawn Lang and Ben Mink, who created "Constant Craving", as co-writers, and they were grateful and pleasantly surprised when they received their share of the royalties.
Very soon after its publication, the composition entered the ratings of world hits, leading the charts of various countries and even continents.
Clip
The clip became especially memorable because of the participation of the then not very famous Angelina Jolie, who played a stripper of a small club, who left the set in the middle of the number.
The video was directed by Samuel Bayer, who directed the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and collaborated with a number of other famous bands.
