"Tell Me Why"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I listened to an Elvis album this morning, and part of "Don't Be Cruel" sounded vaguely familiar:

Baby, if I made you mad
Something I might have said

It has a fairly strong resemblance to some lines from "Tell Me Why":

If it's something that I've said or done
Tell me what, and I'll apologize

I'd been transcribing the songs on that Elvis album, so after I discovered the similarities of those lines, I looked for others.  Elvis' "Sittin' home all alone" seems to have inspired the Beatles' "But you left me sittin' on my own."  The syllable count is different, but they even rhyme ("alone"/"own").

There are also some similar lines in Elvis' "My Baby Left Me":

Yes, my baby left me
Never said a word
Was it something I done
Something that she heard

Elvis was one of the Beatles' inspirations, so it makes sense that there'd be some elements of his music in their songs, but I'd never realized that there were phrases that are so similar.