Why is it okay for the band to rip off Soul Asylum but not others?

I'm bringing this conversation over from another thread. Bon Jovi took the Soul Asylum song Runaway Train for Someday I'll be Saturday Night and we hold it in such wide regard. Why do we give a get out of jail free card for that and not from songs from the last decade?

Seb made the point of "Probably because that's considered a good song, while most of the recent stuff just isn't." but that just doesn't do it for me. Would everyone have to like the song enough for us to say "It's okay this isn't original work because what they did sounds great?"

Would love some thoughts.

What exactly do you find so similar between the songs? The lyrical theme may be the same but in that case you could say that Carrie by Europe is the same song as Always, because both of them is about broken hearted love.

Again, Bon Jovi writes pop influenced rock music, though rock influenced pop music may lean more towards the truth these days. There are only a certain number of songs that can be written in the genre Bon Jovi is playing, at least since 2000. Some melodies may be similar, some arrangements may be like eachother but some of you guys are pushing the "Jon is stealing" theory to far.

The Beautiful World rip of How Far We've Come is pretty brutal though, can't be a coincidence.

Sure sure but this isn't me saying they sound alike. Play the demo of Saturday Night and Runaway Train back to back. Compounded by the fact that the engineer of it, Kevin Shirley I think it was, put on record that Jon walked in with the song and said to make it sound like that.

Tom Petty did a song called Runaway Trains, too, in 1987. Maybe he's the culprit.

This was 20 years ago. Move on

....Yeah you definitely missed the point of this.

I'm not harping on them for ripping off another band. I'm saying we're using "Well this song ripped off Tom Petty so they're liars" and "this song stole from the Civil Wars" as reasons to bash the band but the fact that 20 years ago they did the exact same thing and Saturday Night is loved so much. I wanted a debate on why we're okay with it sometimes and not others.

1. The theft was nowhere near as blatant.
2. Saturday Night is a good song.3
3. Saturday Night emapncipated itself from the source since it became a huge song itself and got its own identity. The Fighter is the last track on WAN, the one that ripped off Civil Wars. It's not a live classic, it's not a fan favorite, it's just an album track that has very little distinct features or identity.

I hear what you're saying. To me I can't separate what makes a song good and what doesn't as I really enjoy both songs. Saturday Night was always going to be a single whereas The Fighter wasn't so knowing more people would hear the first than the latter makes it an odd choice to lift from another song for the sake of an album track. I don't think it becoming big gives it its own identity or makes people forget though. It could very well be the same situation with both Saturday Night and The Fighter. Jon heard a song he really enjoyed and wanted songs that sounded like it. One became a big single, one was for "him". I'm having trouble seeing why one is okay and the other is shameful.

I agree that it's not as blatant. The demo however is far more close to the original source. Does anyone have the original quote from the engineer of Saturday Night? I can scan it later if not.

It worked for Bad Name. Or Michael Jackson's You Are Not Alone. Or half of Zeppelin's catalogue.

The bigger song is the one people think of when they hear a similiar melody or rhythm. This even goes for covers.

I agree. It almost makes you forget it was a take off. My question is more leaning towards this fandom. I think it's either okay that they take off other songs or its not. There's this imaginary middle ground since 2000 when we get up in arms that Jon (and Richie) stole from someone else but they've been doing it for decades. I guess it hit me that we can't be picky when they do it for songs we really like.