Smash Mouth: Walkin' On The Sun
[purchase]
It's been about a decade, so I think it's a fair call to say Smash Mouth belongs to the pantheon of two-hit wonders. They last made the charts in 1999 with All Star, from Astro Lounge, which followed 1997's Walkin' On The Sun.
Nick Lowe says if you're going to nick a tune, do it outright and be shameless about it. Smash Mouth followed that advice and "borrowed" the opening riff of Swan's Splashdown from the 1966 landmark Electronic music album, Perrey and Kingsley's The In Sound From Way Out!
Perrey And Kingsley: Swan's Splashdown
[purchase]
A tune calling out the Boomer generation for hijacking hippie idealism in exchange for commercial faddism was stealing the hook of their hit song from some dirty hippie musicians. As Homer Simpson once said, "the ironing is delicious."