Left Of The… Girl?

A user contacted me a few days ago, claiming that weeks after “Superstar Car Wash” was released back in 1993, there were talks of the Goo Goo Dolls being sued for copyright infringement.

The guy explained that the song “Girl Right Next To Me“, one of the band’s classics which John wrote for his then-wife Laurie, was ripped off from The Replacement’s 1985 track “Left Of The Dial“, which appears in their famous album “Tim”.

While it is no secret John was highly inspired by The Replacements for most of the 1980’s and 1990’s, and he even got the lead singer to write lyrics for “We Are The Normal” (among the others), crafting a tune along the lines of a song one likes is one thing, maliciously and intentionally carbon-copy a song to make money off of it is a different story.

I requested a source for the claim, as I could not find anything on Google nor on the various interviews from that era I have collected, and was simply answered that there were whispers in the official music channels of the time. I’m guessing maybe he was referring to some contacts he had within the label(s) involved with the supposed incident? In the end, nothing official happened.

Either way, at this point it’s for you to decide. In my opinion, there is a number of similarities between the two songs, especially in terms of overall mood and even some melodic approaches (the static guitars screaming here and there, for instance). At the end of the day, we are all inspired by the works of others and may even replicate a portion of their ideas, but the final results are oftentimes different because of our differentiated perception of things. In this case, I see inspiration rather than mere speculation.

Here is “Left Of The Dial“:

And this is “Girl Right Next To Me“:

The final verdict is up to you.