There is nothing new under the sun.
You know, this is a common phrase thrown around with regards to music.
"There's nothing new anymore"
"Everything's already been done."
But I think this is a very simplistic view.
There are things that are surely true about these statements:
For instance, I'm sure every chord in every key has probably been played (at least by some instrument and in some inversion)
However, when you consider the three elements that constitute music alone (melody, harmony, rhythm), it's absolutely ridiculous to say that "nothing is new."
Granted, maybe a fraction of one melody in a verse could be from another song, or maybe a chord progression has been used many times (like the blues, or like a I-V-vi-IV) but to make a blank statement like "nothing is new" is just ignorant in my opinion.
To me, that's like saying there's nothing new in novels or movies. These are all art forms with literally an infinite number of possibilities.
Think about it: In Western music, we have 12 different notes, with literally an infinite number of rhythmic variations and infinite number of possibilities for order of pitches.
Anyway, all this is to say that, although it's clear that many musicians borrow from previous in terms of chord progression, rhythm, or melody, but that's not to say that nothing new is ever created.
When I hear a new song, I usually have one of two very basic reactions in terms of this. Either I think: A) Oh, that's nice (or this sounds stupid, or I love this, or that's really interesting, etc.; or I think B) Hey, this sounds just like XXXXX!
My point is that while there are plenty of shades of gray when it comes to borrowing or stealing or ripping off, I think it's obvious to most people when outright ripping off occurs.
When Led Zeppelin claimed that "The Lemon Song" was written by them, that was a clear case of ripping off. (Or maybe it wasn't their fault and maybe it was the label's fault for assuming they wrote it or whatever ... my point is that would be a clear case of ripping off.) And when Page stole instrumental acoustic pieces almost
note-for-note from Bert Jansch and called them his own, that's another clear case.
I for one am interested to see if their's truth to this stairway thing, because, although the chord progression is nothing new (as someone pointed out), the pattern of notes used in the arpeggiation of the chords is specific to that song.
And if this is not the case, then why do we think "Stairway" as soon as we hear the first 5 notes of that song?