Creep vs. Air

Friend John contends that Radiohead's Creep is something of a rip-off of The Air That I Breathe, written by Brit songwriters Mike Hazlewood and Albert Hammond, and that it becomes apparent upon hearing the old cover by The Hollies. As my iPod harbors a cover, and a great one at that, of The Air That I Breathe by k.d. lang, that was my point of reference, not having heard The Hollies' schmaltzy version (did I say schmaltzy? have I forgotten Barry Manilow's cover?) in thirty years.

Now that I unearthed a performance of all of these, John may (almost certainly) be on to something, although the songs have a much different feeling. You be the judge. (And let's not get started on a discussion of how many times we have heard pieces of melodies from, say, classical music show up in all manner of pop and other later music.)

(Try to get past the ... what?... belch? ... about 1:02 minutes in ...)

And The Hollies from 1974 ...



Heck, while we are at it, you can hear a k.d. lang version here ...

http://www.viddler.com/explore/darealmoflight/videos/6/

UPDATE 9/5/09: Adding weight to his argument, John now sends along this blurb from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creep_(Radiohead_song)#Background_and_recording