As far as I know, this parlor game began in the 1960s, when science-fiction fans began scouting around for a melody to fit “The Green Hills of Earth” from a short story of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein.
Here’s the list I have so far–any others?
Amazing Grace
Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song
Stairway to Heaven GILLIGANS ISLAND - STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN - YouTube
House of the Rising Sun
Yankee Doodle
Pop Goes the Weasel
Peaceful Easy Feeling
I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing
Yellow Rose of Texas
Ghost Riders of the Sky
Rocky Top
Lion Sleeps Tonight
Tangled Up in Blue
Whiter Shade of Pale
Light My Fire
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Jingle Bells
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Greensleeves
Jolly Old St. Nicholas
The First Noel
O Tannenbaum
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
In-a-Gadda-da-Vida
Marines’ Hymn
Wabash Cannonball
America the Beautiful
The Internationale
Onward Christian Soldiers
Ode to Joy
Mack the Knife
A Hundred Bottles of Beer
Clementine
La Cucaracha
Semper Paratus
The Wearing of the Green
(The Rising of the Moon)
The Itsy-Bitsy Spider
I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
Sympathy for the Devil
Rollin’ Down to Old Maui
Acres of Clams
Bread and Roses
Sink the Bismarck
Forest Green (UK “Little Town of Bethlehem”)
Tomorrow Belongs to Me
The Girl I Left Behind Me
The Wabash Cannonball
MacNamara’s Band
Poems that apply:
Jabberwocky
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Little Miss Muffet
Jack and Jill
Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
Little Jack Horner
Itsy Bitsy Spider
Mary Mary Quite Contrary
Anything by Emily Dickinson
Nitpick: A lot of, but not anything, by Emily Dickinson. She worked in other meters, not just common meter. And it could vary within a poem, too. For example, see the fourth stanza of “Because I could not stop for Death.”
I was looking at this last night, and also found Amazing Grace sung to The House of the Rising Sun. It worked quite well, actually.
But seeing this list, I wonder: is there… what, a commutative property of Gilligan? That is, can I take any one of those songs and sing it to the tune of any other of those songs? If “Take Me Out to The Ball Game” = Gilligan, and “House of the Rising Sun” = Gilligan, does House = Ball Game?
Well, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” strays a bit meter-wise but, in general, yes. Anything in common/ballad meter (alternating 8 syllables 6 syllables, usually iambic tetrameter followed by trimeter) should be able to be sung to any other song in that meter. It’s a very, very, very common meter.
When I played in a band, we were hosting an open mic one night when a guy came up and said he wanted to sing Amazing Grace but to the tune of House of The Rising Sun. It worked great.
ETA - which seconds LawMonkey, now that I’ve read his post
From a mathematician’s perspective, it’s one big, happy equivalence class.
And thanks, Sam, for greatly expanding my list of ballad meter songs! This is fodder for many more years of annoying my wife with my occasional habit of interchanging ballad meter songs’ lyrics and tunes.
Since “Stairway to Heaven” is on the list, I should note that “Stairway” is NOT in ballad meter. So while it’s true that any song in ballad/common meter can be sung to the tune of “Stairway to Heaven,” the lyrics of “Stairway” can’t be sung (at least not in an unforced manner) to the tune of a song in ballad meter.
The wife-annoying project is a success already - if “Amazing Grace” lyrics to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song didn’t push her over the edge, doing them to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel” did. Though she kinda liked “Tangled Up In Blue” to the tune of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”
That video of Stairway To Heaven being sung to Gilligans Island sounds to me like he’s just saying the words while the theme from G. I. runs in the background. I think this whole thing is a hoax.
Here in Texas, we sing Emily Dickinson to the tune of “Yellow Rose of Texas”. Definitely puts a new spin on “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, that’s for sure.
