Talent borrows; genius steals; One Direction watch someone doing copy-paste

One Direction have 'fessed up that they've been attempting to rip off The Clash. I know, I know, it's like watching little kids dressing up as adults, but apparently Live While We're Young acknowledges a debt to Should I Stay Or Should I Go:

One Direction member Harry Styles, who seemingly admitted during an interview with BBC Newsbeat that the similarity between the two songs was intentional.

Speaking about the likeness between the tracks, he said: It was kind of on purpose though. It's a great riff, so…

Meanwhile, his bandmate Louis Tomlinson said that it was inevitable that songwriters would pen tracks which sounded similar to older efforts, claiming: "I assume it must be quite difficult to do a unique riff now because there have been so many songs - surely there's only so many riffs you can pull out?"

I love the trembling way that Tomlinson talks about songwriting - it's like when I find myself talking about football; I know the basic idea of what's going on but don't have very much direct experience. It's a case of gently easing yourself out of your field of expertise and hoping the structure doesn't collapse underneath you. "There's probably only a limited number of riffs... like, erm, four? more? four million? Some... some, anyway. And lyrics, right? They're saying we're running out of lyrics because Paul McCartney used up so many... I think..."