I’m surprised that none of the people mentioning Gilbert and Sullivan have mentioned the pattersongs as well. They are all about euphonious confusion for the audience. Usually three different characters are singing three different songs which may or may not share the same rhyme scheme to an insanely fast pasted musical accompanyment. I find them great fun, even if all I get out of any first encounter with one is a phrase here or there. And I believe they’re very different from the first act finales that the other posters mentioning G&S have been talking about, since the finales usually make sure that the audience gets one ‘clear’ listen at every part to the piece.
It’s BAAAACK. I just found this thread…6 years later. ** Co-Ed Prison Sluts** is at the Annoyance Theater @4830 N. Broadway, a little North of the Green Mill every Friday and Saturday night at 10:01pm. My dog Roxie has been playing the role of “Fluffy” for the past year. She’s very good and gets paid in lunch meat.
So, I was getting all excited as I started to read this thread, and was figuring out what to touch on, when I got to my own post from 5 years ago . . . wow, so informative! 
This winter I did a performance of One Day More from Les Miserables, which is another example of the OP, and I think is pretty much the exact song that South Park parodies in the movie.
Yeah - I was reading the thread and was surprised people mentioned a song from BTVS, but not My Eyes from Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. Then I got to the end of the thread and realized DHSAB wasn’t created yet when the thread started. :smack:
‘Oh, Happy We’ from Candide is a fabulous example. Candide and Cunegonde are singing about how well they agree, except they sing it in canon so that their phrases are a quarter note out from one another.
How about “Sumer is icumen in”? They don’t play it on the radio any more, though.
Does this count??? Great cover of Life on Mars…but even better what they do with it…
[URL=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW0ACEOEq6w”]
- Peter Shaffer, from Amadeus
I like the “We Can Do It” and “I Wanna Be a Producer” blends in The Producers.
And I like the technique in general because if your leads are both talking about why it will/won’t work, it gets very tough to understand them. But if they sing, it’s quite easy to pick apart the differing motivations.
Make Up Your Mind/Catch Me I’m Falling from Next to Normal calls it an “overlap”
That’s because it’s got itself on the banned list. People have been singing “coo coo” rather too lewdly.
They’re not calling it an “overlap”. They’re saying “These words are overlapping each other”. That’s not the same thing. As mentioned on the first page of the thread, it’s called “counterpoint”.
I also love when they do this in musical.
I have to second my favorite example Confrontation from Les Miserables.
Does the intro song to Parade count? When Old Red Hills blends with the weird chorus part in the background…do you know what I’m talking about?
Lead:
The rushing of the Chattahoochie
The rustling in the wind
And Mama in the kitchen singin’
And me and Lila swinging in a trees
TOWNSPEOPLE:
The tall pines and the red clay
The blue skies and the dogwood trees
A man can grow his cotton
And his crops
Now in this case, the parts clash a little but I think they are very effective in conveying a tone.
Bumped.
Another G&S example I just remembered: “I Am So Proud” from The Mikado:
http://lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/Gilbert_And_Sullivan:I_Am_So_ProudYes mainly sang regular harmonies but definitely used counterpoint occasionally. Best example I can think of right now is “Hearts”, and I think also “Starship Trooper” – there’s definitely others.
My favorite example of counterpoint, at least in the rock music world, is from Duran Duran’s best song ever, “New Religion” (starting at 2:15)
I know I’m far afield here, but is Meat Loaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light an example?
“It was long ago and it was far away…”
“It never felt so good it never felt so right…”
mmm
Sampiro writes:
> One of my favorite moments from Miss Saigon is when Kim and Ellen are both singing
> over each other about Chris and their relationship with him.
A similar example is Susan Boyle and Elaine Page singing the song “I Know Him So Well” from Chess:
This is especially interesting because Elaine Page was the singer that Susan said on her appearance on *Britain's Got Talent* that she most admired.My favorite example of this is the Beatles “I’ve got a feeling,” at the end when Paul is singing “I’ve got a feeling” while John is singing “Everybody’s had a good year …”
I was lucky enough to see the West End version back in 1987. Somebody - I want to say Tim Rice, but I remember reading in the liner notes from the CD that some lyrics in at least one song were modified without his permission (and I have a feeling that “over his objections” is more like it) - rewrote “Quartet” for the American version so that, expect for a brief moment at the end, nobody is singing over anybody else.
Replacing obsolete link with this.
