Tiffany and i were cooking/watching Aidan, listening to the radio. Omaha’s local folk show was on (in the 4:00 pm hour on a Sunday, what else would be on?) and they had as a guest a folk singer from Wichita, Kansas. Her name is Piper leigh, and she has a website.

She introduced one of her songs, “You Left Too Soon”, and we missed the part where she either did or did not say that she’d written it. On her web site it does distinctly say, “by Piper Leigh.” It also, handily enough, provides the lyrics, reprinted below, just in case, and a Real Audio file of the song. (Unfortunately, the ram file seems to be broken.)

As we half-listened to the song, we both did a double-take. “Didn’t that sound like the Indigo Girls?” I asked. Tiffany agreed. So we paid more attention, and she did it again. A little incredulous, we kept listening, but after the song she never made any mention of the Indigo Girls. So we dragged out our CDs (how quaint, a fixed medium!) and qeued up Love’s Recovery.

And sure enough. Somebody copied somebody. And since all over it says that Emily Saliers wrote the song, I’m guessing she’s not the one that ripped it off. Even the melody is a direct rip-off, where the words are the same.

Does this burn anybody else? ‘Cause it pisses me off.

For your perusal, the lyrics, emphasis mine, hover your mouse over the linked lyrics to see what the other one sings…

You Left Too Soon, by Piper Leigh Oh how I wish we had a second chance So that we could change our circumstance Put some happier words to this tune But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal Our decisions become universal The knowledge we have now is what we already knew Baby, you just left too soon Insecurity is the wall I hide behind To let it fall would hurt your pride and mine How could I show my face beyond this room Guilt is the cancer of my intellect The act of love is soon neglected And lays dying in the strength of its cocoon Baby, you just left too soon Chorus You left too soon to know the wonder that your life would be The prophecy of God’s will come alive You left too soon to know the thousand things that make your life unique The harmony that heart and beat combine You left too soon to know that you were mine I see myself in younger days Counting the stars and mapping the ways My life and love would be Watching for curves and misdirection I put my faith in love’s perfection But there’s no future in a past that wasn’t meant to be…baby Chorus

and

Love’s Recovery by Emily Saliers During the time of which I speak It was hard to turn the other cheek To the blows of insecurity Feeding the cancer of my intellect The blood of love soon neglected Lay dying in the strength of it’s impurity Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together They’ve all gone and left each other In search of fairer weather And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast To the slim chance of love’s recovery There I am in younger days, star gazing Painting picture perfect maps Of how my life and love would be Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection My compass, faith in love’s perfection I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together Left each other one by one on the road to fairer weather And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast To the slim chance of love’s recovery Rain soaked and voice choked Like silent screaming in a dream I search for our absolute distinction Not content to bow and bend To the whims of culture that swoop like vultures Eating us away, eating us away Eating us away to our extinction Oh how I wish I were a trinity So if I lost a part of me I’d still have two of the same to live But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal As specks of dust we’re universal To let this love survive Would be the greatest gift that we could give Tell all the friends who think they’re so together That these are ghosts and mirages All these thoughts of fairer weather Though it’s storming out I feel safe within the arms Of love’s discovery

The sheer, unmitigated gall. Does she think she made it better? Did she think nobody would notice? That someone in a creative profession would take another’s work and call it their own… it just floors me.