New York Dolls

Sylvain Sylvain never softened the debt: "The Dolls' music was mostly derived from ripping off the Rolling Stones and Eddie Cochran," he said. "We didn't invent [the power chord], but we perfected it and it became the punk sound." Even Keith Richards noticed. Asked in 1974 about the resemblance, he shrugged it off rather than claimed it: "it's obvious that the guy mimics Mick, and he does look incredibly like him," he said — amused, not flattered. Sylvain took that borrowed power and, by his account, handed it straight to guitarist Johnny Thunders.

listen: upstream & heresource: Guitar World — New York Dolls interview ↗share

1968

Street Fighting ManThe Rolling Stones

→↓

1973

TrashNew York Dolls

listen forCue the Stones' 1968 "Street Fighting Man" against the Dolls' "Trash" and the theft is structural, not just attitude: both ride a compressed, distorted guitar bed with almost no low end, built for grit over fidelity. Jagger's vocal stays cool and detached over the chaos; Johansen pushes his into a bratty sneer, and the Dolls swap the Stones' martial snare roll for a sloppier, faster backbeat — the same two-chord thrust, played by musicians in more of a hurry.

The tribute in "Looking for a Kiss" isn't subtle: David Johansen opens the song by quoting the Shangri-Las' own hook from "Give Him a Great Big Kiss," word for word, before the song turns into a grittier, more desperate tale of teenage want. The review site Uncle Stylus called the result a "mean, swampy leanness" wrapped around Johansen's frenetic vocal. The homage outlasted one lyric: for 1974's follow-up, the Dolls hired George "Shadow" Morton, the producer behind the Shangri-Las' own hits, specifically to bring the gongs, gunshots, and girl-group theatrics only he knew how to summon.

listen: upstream & hereshare

1964

Give Him a Great Big KissThe Shangri-Las

→↓

1973

Looking for a KissNew York Dolls

listen forPlay the Shangri-Las' 1964 original against the Dolls' 1973 opener and the quotation lands in real time: Mary Weiss speaks "when I say I'm in love, you'd best believe I'm in love, L-U-V" cold, over near silence, before the strings and handclaps arrive. Johansen shouts the same line straight into a wall of overdriven guitar, no pause, no tease — same hook, opposite entrance.

Sylvain Sylvain traced the wiring back to a basement: "We loved T. Rex and the MC5, of course, and we were listening to the Iggy Pop records. One of the first things we ever learned in Billy's basement was 'No Fun' by the Stooges," he said in 2008. "And David introduced us to Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf." The blues stayed the foundation even after the lipstick went on: "We're a blues based band, really," Sylvain said elsewhere that same year. "You got the blues under there." The Stooges gave the band its noise; the blues gave the noise a floor.

listen: upstream & heresource: The Big Get-Even (Ari Surdoval) — Sylvain Sylvain interview (the Stooges' "No Fun," T. Rex, MC5, blues introductions) ↗share

1969

No FunThe Stooges

→↓

1973

Personality CrisisNew York Dolls

listen forSet the Stooges' 1969 "No Fun" beside "Personality Crisis," the song the Dolls built out of that same basement education, and the kinship is in the disgust, not the tempo — Iggy Pop's flat, sneering delivery rides a stomping two-chord riff; Johansen turns the same sneer faster and more melodic, with piano hammering where the Stooges left space. Neither song resolves — they just repeat the hook until it curdles into a taunt.