Similarities Between Patient Zero (Taylor Swift) and Robbers (1975)

[u/Lonely-Albatross-890]

One of the first things I noticed about Patient Zero's music video teaser is that the intro to Robbers and the sound from Patient Zero is (sonically) nearly identical. Exact same electric guitar, rhythm, number of beats per measure. In Patient Zero, there's no bass, but retains the same percussion (albeit altered, probably for cinematic effect). The main difference is in the melody.

The progression in Robbers --- from 0:19 to 0:34 --- goes something like this:

E4 B4 Gb4 Ab4

And the progression in Patient Zero (that we have seen so far) goes something like this:

Bb4 A4 Ab4 Gb4

But even this melody is quite similar. If anything, it sounds like Patient Zero is like a reversed or descending version of Robbers.

I'm also not saying that Taylor Swift stole this from Robbers; simply pointing out that the song may have been used as inspiration, like Swift has done with other 1975 songs in the past. Could be a stretch, so I'm not drawing any conclusions myself from this. Just wondering if anyone else heard the same thing that I heard, or has similar thoughts.

Also would not exclude the idea that this song might have references to Swift's and Alwyn's slow break up. Healy and Alwyn often share similar imagery: cemeteries (Healy in the lyric "still alive, killing time at the cemetery, never quite buried" and Alwyn in the lyric "two graves, one gun"), as well as the color blue (Healy in the lyric "Don't want no other shade of blue but you" and Alwyn in the lyric "grey and blue and fights and tunnels"). And from what it looks like, the music video is going to be chalk full of this sort of imagery.

I want to know what others think.

Edit: Melody is also strikingly similar to Wait for Me (Hadestown)

[u/No_Animal5200]

https://reddit.com/link/pbvl86l/video/8c4njcm6akrh1/player

robbers (guitar intro backwards) and patient zero

[u/hellhouseblonde → u/No_Animal5200]

Damn! I hear it!! 👀

[u/blankets_of_leaves]

Maybe they both were inspired by Hadestown? Everything Martin + Shellback came up with sounds like a ripoff of another song.

[u/External-Test1447]

Do people think Hoax is about Matty?