this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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Today I Learned

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The song was originally written and performed by Dolly Parton in 1974. She wrote it for her mentor and partner Porter Wagoner after leaving their band.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The Mamas & The Papas’ ‘California Dreamin’’ was written by John Phillips and Michelle Phillips in 1963 and first recorded by Barry McGuire. The Mamas & the Papas sang backup on the original version.

John and Michelle Phillips were in The Mamas & The Papas tho. Edit: Oh, I think I understand... It was first recorded by someone else (Barry McGuire). I guess I misread.

Regarding Hallelujah: John Cale basically co-wrote the song. My understanding is that he wrote like 100+ verses for it or some shit, many of which Leonard Cohen himself took and added to his own version.

Coolio and L.V.'s ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ lifted the entire backing track from Stevie Wonder’s ‘Pastime Paradise’.

This is called "sampling," and if you're going to list those, then pretty much every hip hop track ever is going to be here and that would be silly.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

John and Michelle Phillips were in The Mamas & The Papas tho.

True, the thing is that Barry McGuire wasn't.

This is called “sampling,” and if you’re going to list those, then pretty much every hip hop track ever is going to be here and that would be silly.

Sampling is when one takes a 'sample' from another composition, not the whole thing. Pray tell how many hiphop tracks have an entire other song as the instrumental. Plus iirc the chorus vocal melody is also the same.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah see my edit, I misread the first one. The way it was written kind of made it seem like you were saying Ms&Ps and Phillips' were two different entities

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

TBF I didn't pay attention to whether the Phillipses were in the band, since it was common for someone outside to write songs back then.