I just saw the full version of this on YouTube - previously I had only heard the “wandering star” line. I was suprised to find that the melody for the verse (but not the lyrics) was very famililar. It also makes me think of Hallowe’en.
Has it been used/sampled somewhere else? The bit I am referring to is: “Mud can make you prisoner… never come true.” Full lyrics are here.
It comes from the musical comedy, “Paint Your Wagon.” The melody was composed by FredericK Lowe. To buy the soundtrack of the movie version go to:
I’d heard that Lee Marvin did his own singing in the movie. I still love the part where the preacher is cast into “hell”, and there’s Ben to greet him, whiskey in hand.
I understand that - what I’m saying is, I am convinced I have heard part of the melody used in another song. Either that, or the melody in Paint Your Wagon was taken from another song (less likely).
[QUOTE=Duke of Rat]
I’d heard that Lee Marvin did his own singing in the movie. /QUOTE]
I heard the same, but also that Eastwood had a “ghost” singer on some of histunes. Being a Marvin fan, I hope that he sang “Star”, but in keeping with the OP, I can’t think of anything recent which might have “sampled” the tune in question.
Halloween?
Maybe the old song, “You better watch out, when the curse goes by, for you may be the next to die. They wrap you up in a bloody sheet, and stick you down about 6 feet deep…” fits a little.
What do y’all think?
Q
Halloween?
Maybe this one?
“You better watch out when the hearse goes by, for you may be the next to die. They wrap you up in a bloody sheet and stick you down about 6 feet deep…”
That’s the only tune I can think of which sounds kinda like the melody?
Quasi
Sorry for the double post, but read 'em both please?
Thanks
Quasi
Do you have a link to where the melody is for that? I don’t recognise the lyrics but you never know. Thanks!
Okay.
Further research into that “Halloween” tune I mentioned reveals it is sung to the tune of Gounod’s “Death March of a Marionette”, otherwise known as the theme from the old “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” television series.
Here is a link: Alfred Hitchcock Presents / The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
To hear it, maybe download an MP3 file and see if it’s what you’re thinking of.
Other than that, I can’t really think of a melody which comes close.
Thanks for making me use a few “grey cells” I thought I had lost! 
Quasi
To the OP’s question, the only thing I can think of that is even extremely vaguely similar is the middle section of Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You”. (Yes, it steals most of “Plaisir D’Amour”, but that section is not in the original.)
But thanks to the OP for posting that. I’ve never seen “Paint Your Wagon”, and that song was poignant and good enough to make me want to see the whole thing.
Since it sounds exactly like his speaking voice, I’m going with it was him until proven otherwise.
That’s not the tune I sang it to as a kid. My tune was more like Laurel and Hardy’s music, “The Cuckoo Song” (IIRC), but it definitely wasn’t that, either. I’ve never heard the “worms crawl in” tune anywhere else.
That bit sounds like the bridge from “Christmas in Killarney” (here is a version that can be downloaded). It’s the part with “the door is always open, the neighbors pay a call.” Bing Crosby did a famous version.