Taken from The Jam’s fifth album, Sound Affects (1980), ‘Start!’ landed the band their second UK number one single (‘Going Underground’ was their first).
The question of where the line between paying homage to your musical influences and plagiarising them lies is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. On the subject of which, have you heard ‘Taxman’ by The Beatles?
On listening to ‘Start’, it seems like Paul Weller has definitely heard it. Many times. When asked about the similarity, Bruce Foxton disclosed that the band were listening to the Beatles’ Revolver “a lot” at the time…