Jason Isbell vs. Dierks Bentley

Jason Isbell vs. Dierks Bentley -- stolen song showdown?

Okay, folks, get your eagle ears ready, because this is going to be a fun head-to-head comparison. First, the background, via a series of tweets by Jason Isbell, formerly of Drive-By Truckers:

"Dierks" has officially ripped off my song "In A Razor Town." Dierks is a douchebag.—
Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 07, 2012

The song of Dierks is called "Home."—
Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 07, 2012

Eat a bag of Dierks.—
Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 07, 2012

I love @DanWilsonMusic's songwriting, but I bet he's never heard my song. I bet Dierks brought that idea to the table and Dan ran with it.—
Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 07, 2012

I think this is a good time to ask all Dierks Bentley fans to unfollow me. We just weren't meant to be friends.—
Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 07, 2012

I've said what I had to say. Not gonna Twitter fight with another grown person. Not gonna change my position, either.—
Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) January 07, 2012

Dierks Bentley actually did respond to this via his own account:

@Jasonisbel "I bet Dierks brought that idea to the table and @Danwilsonmusic ran with it.” -HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! that is some funny shit!—
Dierks Bentley (@DierksBentley) January 07, 2012

@jasonisbel is that what you "bet" happened? that's how you imagine it? #fantasyworld #getoveryourself—
Dierks Bentley (@DierksBentley) January 07, 2012

“@JasonIsbel:I have had too much stolen lately.""JUST IN: "Nashville and LA songwriters running out of ideas..rushing to steal jason songs!"—
Dierks Bentley (@DierksBentley) January 07, 2012

Okay, so now that we’ve got all that laid out on the table, I can summarize: Jason Isbell hears Dierks Bentley’s latest song, “Home” and hears similarities to the arrangement of his song “In A Razor Town,” from his first solo album, Sirens of the Ditch. He tweets to his 15,000 followers, who then spread the word to Dierks Bentley’s 205,000 followers, and then briefly there’s a Twitterfight brewing between a mainstream country hitmaker and one of the better alt-country songwriters working today. All par for the course for a January Friday night. And I, as readers of this site surely know, am not one to “cry plagiarism,” but I decided to listen to the two songs side by side and judge for myself where any similarities may lie. And though I don’t think anyone “stole” anything, so to speak, there appear to be elements of the same melody to be heard in either track.

What do you think? It doesn’t seem as blatant to me as when Son Volt completely rewrote Counting Crows’ “Goodnight Elizabeth” for their American Central Dust track “Exiles.” But to these ears, it’s there nonetheless.