The moment that you decide that you are going to create a piece of music, you are being wholly and completely unoriginal, but who gives a ****, really?

Only nature is original...at least in relation to us as humans. I only brought up the example of the cave paintings to show that even what we could consider to be the first human attempt at art was not completely original. If something was completely original, no one would understand it. Art is our attempt at communicating what is going on in our heads on a deeper level than just talking can.

Things can be built on in an original way...and that is what we mean when we say a new band sounds very original. If you boil it down to what true originality means, however, there is no way you can argue that there is something like that.

Really I think the nearest thing possible to truly original music would be to give a musical instrument to a person who was raised in total isolation and darkness since birth for them to make some form of noise. Although it would be interesting hear what that person would do with the instrument it would be of course completely barbaric.

No song is an island. Simple as that, really. If you've ever heard music, you've been inspired by music. Even if you decide that you will only create your own instruments and play music in 13/8, then you are inspired by all the music you are trying to not sound like.

However, somewhat original sounds pop up all the time. No one had made a song like Autobahn before Kraftwerk (more or less, bear with me here) because the feeling of driving along an endless autobahn wasn't well known before that. No album had sounded exactly like Fear of a Black Planet before, for the rage on that album was born out of a very specific time and place and sense of directionless rage. My attempt at a moral would be: Stop obsessing about 'sound' and 'influence', and start thinking about 'feel' and 'content'.

Right. But I'm speaking musically. :P

....so was I....

If music was initially inspired by nature or sounds then I'm not sure I would say that makes it unoriginal.

My snub-nosed two and a half pennies would be that either everything is original or nothing is. Even if you decide to write a note-for-note rip-off of an existing song and perform it, it will still feature your own subtle twists and phrasings.

Why? True originality is something that is completely distinct. The minute you say something is inspired by something else, it loses originality. Saying "band Y is inspired by band X" is the same thing as saying "ancient music is inspired by the seasons/animals/etc.". It didn't come out of nowhere, therefore it is not completely original.

I guess I'm just having a difficult time considering them to be the same thing.