Pop songs that borrow melodies from classical music or old, public domain songs

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Turnaround, May 23, 2010.

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  1. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    "Love of My Life" by Santana borrows from Brahms 3rd Symphony
    Greg Lake's "Father Christmas" borrows from Prokofiev
     
  2. Denali

    Denali Forum Resident

    Joni Mitchell's song "River" uses "Jingle Bells".
     
  3. Matty

    Matty Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I think so. Also a bit of the Nutcracker.
     
  4. Emilio

    Emilio Senior Member

    Albert Ketelbey's "In a Persian Market" was recorded in English as "Take My Heart".
     
  5. music4life

    music4life Senior Member

    Location:
    South Elgin, IL
    Eric Carmen used "Row, row row your boat" as the opening refrain on "Boats Against the Current"
     
  6. WilsonTTC

    WilsonTTC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    2 songs from Muse' Resistance (both quite tastefully done):

    United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage) - has Chopin Nocturne No. 2 at the end;

    I Belong to You - incorporated the aria from Samson and Delilah in the middle of song
     
  7. Jonno

    Jonno Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Randy Crawford's One Day I'll Fly Away takes it's main hook (with a slight alteration) from Tchaikovsky's Waltz Of The Flowers from Nutcracker.
     
  8. TMan

    TMan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    The James Gang song 'Bomber' has a section called 'Bolero' (from the Ravel composition) that was removed from the Rides Again album for many years due to the Ravel estate supposedly insisting that only full orchestras play the piece, and only restored on relatively recent reissues of the Rides Again album (and on the 'Look What I Did' Joe Walsh anthology, if I recall correctly).

    Why this didn't apply to The Jeff Beck Group's "Beck's Bolero" I am not sure.
     
  9. lobo

    lobo Music has always been a matter of Energy to me...

    Location:
    Germany
    I can't belive it took so long, until someone posted a "I can't believe that..." comment.
     
  10. Sean Keane

    Sean Keane Pre-Mono record collector In Memoriam

    COLBIE CAILLAT - Bubbly sounds a lot like Them There Eyes.
     
  11. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    There was another pop song based on "O Solo Mio." It was called "There's No Tomorrow" and was a hit for Tony Martin.

    Tony Martin also did "I Get Ideas," which was based on the Spanish song "Adios Muchachos."

    "A Song of Joy" by Miguel Rios was adapted from the fourth ("Choral") movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.

    "Asia Minor" by Kokomo (a pseudonym for Jimmy "Wiz" Wisner) was a rocked-up version of Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor.

    The first two hits by Johnny and the Hurricanes were based on old folk songs: "Red River Rock" (from "Red River Valley") and "Beatnik Fly" (from "Blue Tail Fly").

    "Christmas Canon" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra was based on Pachelbel's Canon in D.

    "The Class" by Chubby Checker, his first single in 1959, is based on "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

    "Little Star" by the Elegants is based on "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," a French melody from the 18th century popularly attributed to Mozart.

    "The Show Must Go On," the Three Dog Night version at least, contains a part of "Entrance of the Gladiators" by Czech composer Julius Fucik, written in 1897. A shorter segment is heard throughout "Goodbye Cruel World" by James Darren.

    "My Bonnie Lassie," a top-20 hit for the Ames Brothers in 1955, borrows its melody from "Scotland the Brave," which was written early in the 20th century.

    All of the following songs have the same public-domain melody:
    "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes"
    "The Great Speckled Bird"
    "The Wild Side of Life"
    "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels"

    And of course, there was "Hooked on Classics" ...
     
  12. Hey Vinyl Man

    Hey Vinyl Man Another bloody Yank down under...


    The Broadway version has both the bit from "The Star Spangled Banner" and the Jesus and Mary lines. The only bit I can think of that is in the Cowsills' version and not the Broadway version is the "Don't ever have to cut it 'cause it stops by itself" bit.


    Black 47 uses traditional melodies all the time:
    "40 Shades of Blue" - "Loch Lommond"
    "Livin' in America" - "The Foggy Dew"
    "Mychal" - "Lord Franklin" (which Bob Dylan also borrowed for "Bob Dylan's Dream")
    ...and I'm pretty sure a few others that I can't recall offhand.
     
  13. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Of course, The Doors' "Alabama Song" doesn't merely borrow from classical music - it is an aria from the opera, "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony."

    Also a friend of mine is trying to introduce me to house music, and I discovered that Deadmau5' "Moar Ghosts and Stuff" samples Chopin's funeral march from the second sonata.
     
  14. jimmydean

    jimmydean Senior Member

    Location:
    Vienna, Austria
    Pachelbel's Canon in D

    i think it is one of the most often used

    Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger
    The Farm - All Together Now
    Village People / Pet Shop Boys - Go West
    alphaville - forever young (not 100% sure on the dylan version)
     
  15. pencilchewer

    pencilchewer Active Member

    Location:
    far and away
    hah! do you know, i had no idea about this til my daughter had to learn "Aura Lee" on the flute for a school recital??.... she kept calling it that and i kept telling her "it's Love Me Tender".... and i'd sing the lyrics along with her playing.... so you just confirmed it for me :laugh:
     
  16. jimmydean

    jimmydean Senior Member

    Location:
    Vienna, Austria
    another one from procol harum:
    Prelude No 1 in C major from JS Bach's was included in "repent walpurgis"
     
  17. H-Man

    H-Man Member

    Location:
    Boston
    Maybe slightly off-topic, but I vaguely remember John Entwistle mentioning that he lifted bits of TUBBY THE TUBA for his HEAVEN AND HELL. To be honest though, I never took the time or effort to compare them. Maybe somebody here can add to this.
     
  18. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident

    Bob Weir/Grateful Dead “Victim Or The Crime”;
    The progression/tune, which co-writer Garritt Graham describes as a “mutant-Bartok extravaganza”, was actually a thematic something-or-other that Weir derived from Stravinsky’s “Rite Of Spring”, spliced onto a dissonant variation of Bartok’s “Music For Strings, Percussion And Celeste”.
     
  19. jgreen

    jgreen Well-Known Member

    Location:
    St. Louis,MO.
    "At Last" is from an opera.
     
  20. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    The horn arrangements on not one, but two songs on The Last Waltz" quote from "Dixie"

    The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and Ophelia
     
  21. Also "Lady Liberty" - Beach Boys
     
  22. First example I thought of. It seems to be cribbed by anyone writing a ballad who wants to evoke a particular melancholic mood without trying too hard.
     
  23. Paul W

    Paul W Senior Member

    Beats me......maybe we should ask Matthew Fisher who really deserves credit for "A Whiter Shade of Pale".
     
  24. Jay F

    Jay F New Member

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    And then there's that title.
     
  25. kevinsinnott

    kevinsinnott Forum Coffeeologist

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
    Paul Simon's American Tune is from a Liszt choral work movement. The first time I heard the Liszt tune, I spent an hour asking myself where I'd heard it before. I find his
    Simon's title ironic.
     
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