Expert: Erick Byrd - 2/8/2012

Question
in the 80's the group the cars were sued by another arist for
copying a part of their song . The song the cars used the riff in
was all mixed up ! The song was from the seventies I had it on a
cassette from a radio station ! All I remember is that the song
had the word chessmen or checkmate in it and it wasn't a top
twenty hit. I tried to find the answer at various cars website
even lawsuit sites but never found ? It driving me crazy !
If you can help thanks!!!!

Answer
Hi Tim,

I think you're thinking of "Let's Go" by The Cars, which reached #14 in the US in 1979 and #5 in Canada. The Cars' "Let's Go" borrows a hand clap and chant sequence from The Router's 1962 song "Let's Go (Pony)", which reached #19 on the US chart.  

I've found a few comments online that state that The Routers sued The Cars, claiming copyright infringement, but it was either settled out of court or the judge dismissed the case (depending on the story). Unfortunately, these are all just comments by readers and nothing concrete. Whatever happened, it appears that The Routers may have borrowed it themselves from either an old English soccer chant or, at the least, an American football chant popular in the 1950's.  

Here's a link to a recording of The Routers "Let's Go (Pony)": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4j9fRs6pgM

And here's a link to The Cars "Let's Go" (listen at about 1:25 to 1:30 for the chant): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExYsh1W22Wo

Of course that doesn't necessarily match the clue you gave regarding "chessmen" or "checkmate" in the lyrics. But this is the closest I could find that matched.  So, hopefully this is the one you remembered.

Thanks,
Erick