First, let me say that I'd like to see more songs posted with similarities to Jane's songs. I think it would be fun.
With that in mind, I'd argue that some things being somewhat similar to earlier things doesn't mean that the newer things were
derived directly from the earlier things.
The Cream comparison is a popular and fairly plausible theory. The other two seem pretty dubious. I bet if we really wanted we could find things even
more similar to those Jane's songs mentioned, and I'm sure we could find multiple precedents for the riffs and rhythms in those Fela and Bowie tunes. I mean, just as a quick example, the overall rhythm of Three Days is very similar to the famous Bo Diddely beat, but of course the Bo Diddley beat was much like earlier things:
Bo Diddley was well known for the "Bo Diddley beat," a rumba-like beat similar to "hambone", a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes. Somewhat resembling "shave and a haircut, two bits" beat, Diddley came across it while trying to play Gene Autry's "(I've Got Spurs That) Jingle, Jangle, Jingle". Three years before Bo's "Bo Diddley", a song that closely resembles it, "Hambone", was cut by Red Saunders' Orchestra with The Hambone Kids.
Back in the 90s I took a class with this Ghanaian drum master, and they have a few primary rhythms, which all have very specific meanings, and one of the main rhythms, which is ancient, always reminded me a little of the rhythm part in Three Days.
I bet if leviticus or I made an abstract painting from scratch tomorrow, you could scour the Earth and find an earlier abstract painting with an almost identical composition. There's just nothin' new under the sun.
