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Originally Posted by some_exotic_booze
Petty is still pending law-suit.
And to me, maybe I'm deaf, but they sound almost identicle.
I think Mary Jane doubles as a story about a girl and about marijuana...
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Well that guitar chord progression is so common that you could you can just pick up plenty of songs which have the same one. It doesn't mean that they all copied each other - it's just a common chord progression. Having said that, it's not even the same chord progression anyway.
If you count 1, 2, 3, 4 - play one drum on beats 1, 2 and 4 - then play another drum on beat 3, then play them over each other, it's going to sound like a coherent beat when they're combined. It'll make the drums sound like a normal rhythm where you might have 4 beats in a count of 4. The drums aren't anything like each other, but when you mix them it makes them sound coherent.
The bassline is completely different. Tom Petty's bassline is reflecting the chord progression of the guitar (very common). RHCP's bassline is reflecting the chord progression of the guitar (very common) as well as adding fills in all over the place - it's more complex. The basslines aren't alike.
Lyrically, the entire song is a metaphor for drugs. Mary Jane is slang for marijuana and if you look at the song deeply, it really has nothing to do with girls. Anyway, talking about girls and drugs isn't exactly rare in rock.
When the radio presenters played them together, they 'accidentally' forgot to mention that they altered the tempos to make them play together.
When it comes down to it, yes, the chord progression is similar and they're both funky - and that's about it. There are 100000 other songs in the world which use that chord progression - with the millions of bands around, you're going to get some songs which sound similar.
If Tom Petty really thought it was a rip off, he would have said so - but he denies it. I would be more worried about the Strokes who actually admitted to using a Tom Petty riff (American Girl). I don't see that getting any press - probably because there aren't greedy radio hosts who think they can make a dollar or two by making silly accusations.
I don't blame you for thinking they sound similar. The chord progression is no grounds for a case, but it is probably one of major things people listen for in music. And those radio hosts made the bass and drums sound similar when they were nothing alike.