Ryan Adams - "Shallow"

Does Ryan Adams listen to other people’s songs and deliberately steal ideas? Or try to play like them and then come up with his own variation? Ryan Adams : "Even when I’m trying to write in a vacuum and do something just based on a bass guitar line, I’ll find references to other songs. I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened. So instead of just avoiding them I go, ‘Oh this kinda reminds me of…’ I usually mean what I’m singing, and so I figure that’s the main point".

"Shallow" is Ryan Adams ripping off Oasis ripping-off T.Rex (who probably ripped-off some blues guy in the first place), complete with Liam Gallagher-style vocal and a lyric that apes ‘Roll With It’s’ "You gotta say what say don’t let anyone get in your way". Ryan : "Yeah. That’s totally my homage to Noel Gallagher and those guys. We had this T.Rex part and I thought it needed a middle eight, so I was gonna go total Oasis. ‘Cos there’s no point NOT doing it".

Ryan : "The record’s called ‘Rock N Roll’, so it really is me playing homage to all this rock’n’ roll music I’ve loved forever, so I didn’t care. Maybe some people won’t get the joke and they’ll say, ‘He’s just ripping people off left and right!’ It’s like, ‘NO ! – that’s the point!’"

Available on the album "Rock'n Roll"