Famous Blue Raincoat / When I Need You / Little Jeannie ----> Franz Schubert ??

The melody of the "hook" line, or chorus of When I Need You is identical to the part of the Leonard Cohen song Famous Blue Raincoat where the lyrics are as follows: "Jane came by with a lock of your hair, she said that you gave it to her that night, that you planned to go clear".

The melody of these lyrics matches the lyrics of When I Need You as follows: "When I need you, I just close my eyes and I'm with you, and all that I so want to give you, is only a heart beat away".

In a 2006 interview with the Globe & Mail Cohen said: "I once had that nicking happen with Leo Sayer. Do you remember that song When I Need You Cohen sings the chorus of Sayer's number one hit from 1977, then segues into 'And Jane came by with a lock of your hair', a lyric from Famous Blue Raincoat 'Somebody sued them on my behalf … and they did settle', even though, he laughs, 'they hired a musicologist, who said, that particular motif was in the public domain and, in fact, could be traced back as far as Schubert".

The same melody can be heard in Elton John's "Little Jeannie" in the lyrics: "Stepped into my life from a bad dream / Making the life that I had seem / Suddenly shiny and new".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_I_Need_You

PS the Schubert source mentioned could be "Standchen"

Schubert's "Leise flehen meine". I was listening to Schubert's lieder and thought about the "famous blue raincoat". I googled it and there you are :-)

Just listened to a version by Werner Güra, Tenor & Christoph Berner, Piano, but I don't hear it.

I also don't hear the connection with Schubert's "Standchen".

Umm omg the first 4 bars are the beginning of famous blue raincoat!! Who stole from whom!! hehe

https://open.spotify.com/track/4b59u2E74KcDuyHCRBkf5v?si=OAWIwHITRWOLGzN_6vSUTw

I also didn't really hear the When I Need You connection until I started trying to play it on the piano.. once I started playing Famous blue raincoat i could hear When i need you clear as day lol. This has been fun I discovered some really nice chord progressions from Schubert that I added to one of my own compositions!! Added a ton of depth to a melody song i thought i couldn't improve any more!

You're absolutely right Michael.

So Leonard didn't copy the particular "Jane came by../When I need you.. motif, but the first bars from Ständchen D 957 Leise flehen meine Lieder

So we were fooled by that hired musicologist.

JoJo greet

Here's what I hear:

Famous Blue Raincoat's beginning bars on the guitar sound similar to Schubert's Standchen but in a lower key and slightly changed chords. "And Jane came by with a lock of your hair" motif sounds exactly like "When I need you". "When I need you" and "Little Jeannie" are very similar. "When I need you" and "Little Jeannie" have nothing in common with Schubert's Standchen.