"Keep It Gay" from 'Me and Juliet'

I just heard this song on the Showtunes channel, and it bears a strange resemblance to "Keep It Gay" from The Producers. Or, rather, the song from The Producers bears a strange resemblance to it. Coincidence, or intentional by Brooks?

yes. "It Takes Two" from INTO THE WOODS and HAIRSPRAY, "Take A Chance on Me" from MAMMA MIA! and LITTLE WOMEN, also "The Heart is Slow to Learn" has two completely different versions by Don Black one from DRACULA and the other originally supposed to be in Webber's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA II. I remember someone freaked out and posted that after DRACULA had opened that Frank Wildhorn stole a song from Andrew Lloyd Webber. Webber recycled his melody into THE BEAUTIFUL GAME and Black wrote a new lyric for DRACULA but retained the title. it's not that uncommon. if two shows had two songs with the same title and similar melodys then there'd be some legal action going on... however, I do think, some song titles are owned. like I don't think you can write a new song titled "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" no matter how different it may be...

didn't VANILLA ICE get sued for stealing music from QUEEN??? I dunno...

Updated On: 5/10/05 at 12:55 AM

Sorry, but the first two notes of OVER THE RAINBOW are a full octave apart, unlike the first two notes of SOMEWHERE.

Song titles (or pla titles or movie titles, etc.) cannot be copywrighted. A phrase may be trademarked, however, if you actually coined the phrase yourself. For example, the Rodgers & Hammerstein organization has trademarked the phrase "Some Enchanted Evening", since Oscar Hammerstein coined the phrase. Therefore, you could not sell "Some Enchanted Evening" perfume, or open a "Some Enchanted Evening" restaurant without getting sued by Rodgers & Hammerstein.

I imagine if you used "Some Enchanted Evening" as the theme of your high school prom, they'd be OK with that...