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“While we’re discussing song plagiarism… is everyone here aware of the Warrant “Down Boys” ripoff of “Bye Bye Love”?
— A member of The Cars Forever fan-club on Facebook
NEWS, RUMORS & GOSSIP — Did Jani Lane steal his song idea for “Down Boys” from The Cars and make it his own?
The song “Down Boys” was written by Lane and appears on the debut Warrant album “Dirty, Rotten, Filthy, Stinking Rich” which was released in January 1989.
The Cars song “Bye-Bye Love” was from their “St” debut album released in June of 1978.
While The Cars track “Bye-Bye Love” was written by the band’s vocalist Ric Ocasek, the lead vocals on this song are actually sung by bassist Benjamin Orr.
Now this subject has been talked about for years, and someone has actually put the 2 songs together (mashed-up) in a way that definitely shows several similarities… and there are a few versions floating around on Youtube. (both are shared below)
One version plays The Cars music for “Bye Bye Love” with Lane‘s vocals from “Down Boys” laid in over the top, while the second version features the Warrant music for “Down Boys“, with Orr‘s vocals laid in over their track, and they both match up nearly perfect.
What makes the comparison even more ironic is that The Cars released their 3rd album “Panorama” in August of 1980 and they actually have a song on that release titled “Down Boys”.
This has not went unnoticed and over the years there have been several blogs, videos, or online comments noting the similarities between the 2 songs.
A post in The Cars Forever – Fan Club Facebook group from December of 2024 reads as follows: “While we’re discussing song plagiarism… is everyone here aware of the Warrant “Down Boys” ripoff of “Bye Bye Love”? Talk about a blatant ripoff… you can literally go through each individual song section: intro has the exact same rhythm with notes slightly altered, verse chords are the same in different order (to be fair, the verse is basically “Can’t Explain”), pre-chorus is basically the same dreamy major seventh chords (the “it’s orangey skies…” part). I don’t know if The Cars ever went after them for it.”
In 1993 Lane was also sued by Michael Sylvestre and Douglas Richwine for alleged Copyright Infringement of their song titled “Heaven“.
Their claim was that the Warrant song “Heaven” from the band’s 1989 debut album was copied from their version of a song with the same name “Heaven“… which they also claim was circulated on a (demo) recording some years earlier.
The duo claim their version of “Heaven” was first authored as early as February of 1984 while Lane claims his version of “Heaven” was authored in or around July 1985.
The Plaintiffs in this case also allege that they were part of the music scene in California (both Los Angeles and San Francisco) from 1985 through 1987, focusing mainly on a period between ‘early 1985 to mid–1986‘.
The Plaintiffs go as far as to allege, that they played their songs at various parties and shared their demo recordings with various industry people during this same period, and essentially try to lay claim that Lane could have been present to hear their version which resulted in him lifting the idea.
In court documents, Lane notes that he arrived to Los Angeles in March 1985, but also spent some weeks back in Ohio between March and April of that same year.
Read more about this case, and how it evolved at this location here.
Check out the different mash-ups below as heard on YouTube.
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