Dilemma - Help!!

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DarkFriend

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Okay, I don't listen to the radio and definitely not the Country music stations.

I've been writing a new song's lyrics in my head for the past month. By complete chance, I came across a song that is making it big on the country charts.

Some of the lyrics are exactly what I've been writing in my head. And, parts of the song's message/theme are very similar to what I've been writing.

I am flabbergasted. First, that a song I've been working on with a VERY unique theme and word play is somehow already out there. And second, that only by extreme randomness did I come about this song. Had I been going to sleep as planned instead of web-surfing, I never would have found this.

What to do? Do I drop my song or continue knowing there are similarities? Again, I feel like I'm dreaming here.. Or more of a nightmare.
 
Keep it - your version is probably unique enough that it will not be considered plagiarism. Definitely a conundrum though....
 
Same thing happened to me, in a way.

I wrote a song, lyrics and insturmental. Then, a friend made me listen to Make It Witchu, and its about one chord away from being the same. I kept mine, not throwing it away..

I say keep it, you put work into it. It's rightfully yours and I don't think anyone will accuse you of plagiarism.
 
Thanks for the comments and support. Thankfully, the music is 100% different, so no similarities there at all. It's just four words in succession that are similar in the lyrics in both songs' choruses. In my song, those four words are the key lyrical "catch" so it is pretty significant. After thinking about it a lot last night, I decided to continue with the song. Heck, its not like more than 50 people worldwide are going to hear it. I just pride myself on my originality.. Thanks again.
 
Almost everything that can be said in song has already been said - the best we can hope for as writers is to find a different way to say it (love songs as an obvious example). Almost every chord progression that could possibly be created has already been created - we can only hope we can find a different way to play it (3 chord progressions as an obvious example).

I think any writer is influenced by several things - other songs we hear being a significant influence. So it is almost impossible not to write a song that is similar to something already out there.

I don't think any writer should dwell too much on the fact that there are or may be songs that sound alot like something we've written. We can only hope to write the best songs we can.

The fact is, there is a relatively small chance that a given song written by any writer will actually be recorded, published, distributed, played on the radio, etc. etc. So discarding a song that may sound similar or tell a similar story is not a logical thing to do (every writer would end up discarding almost every song).
 
keep at it!!! I wrote a song a long time ago and thought it was the best I ever wrote..I let my dad here the music(no lyrics yet) and found out that it was identical to "The first cut is the deepist"...man I was upset, cuz I write to the music!!!
 
Update on this - the song is 95% done and has really come out far different than expected (in a good way). Thanks again for the advice.
 
well, calculus wasn't discovered by one math guru, but two separately, at almost the same time, and people still recognize both of them.
 
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