Inserting song lyrics into alternate tunes: List your faves!

[Big_Fat_Harry_Deal]

I’ve long enjoyed interchanging the tunes & lyrics of O Canada & O Tannenbaum.

[DesertDog]

@h.sapiens

@Eutychus

So can Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”

Someone once pointed out to me that many of Emily Dickinson’s poems can be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”.

in the Babylon 5 episode Day of the Dead Geribaldi’s ex-girlfriend, Dodger, mentions that fact to him. It’s ironic as she is dead herself at the time.

[Infovore]

Not lyrics, per se, but apparently quite a lot of popular songs have the exact same meter as Pachelbel’s Canon.

[Chronos]

The thing with Pachelbel’s Canon isn’t so much the meter (which is fairly simple) but the chord progressions.

[sqweels]

Not exactly the same thing, but upon noticing the musical similarity between “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “Can’t get Enough of Your Love”, I decided to combine them:

*Well I take - a whole lots of money
I don’t need - I want you
You give me something a man can want
Now tell me - what I can ask for

Come on come on and run around
I don’t have to stay out and - do whatcha do

I cant’ geeet a wonderful love
I can’t get a wonderful - lu-u-uv
I can’t get a wonderful love

When I hold her I want love
Love sets my soul on fire
Yeahh, hang me up in your doorway
Gonna hang me up and down my spine

Well my baby, she’s all, “come on Dude”
I said, “Baby, I’m clean out of ‘do whatcha do’”

I cant’ geeet a wonderful love
I can’t get a wonderful - lu-u-uv
I can’t get a wonderful love

But can I get a witneeeess?*

[Jenaroph]

I want to thank Dan Norder and Suburban Plankton for collectively jogging my memory that the lyrics of I Wanna Be Sedated go well with the tune of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

[Infovore]

@Chronos

The thing with Pachelbel’s Canon isn’t so much the meter (which is fairly simple) but the chord progressions.

D’oh! Of course you’re right. I’m not sure why I typed “meter.”

[SpyOne]

@Eutychus

@Qadgop_the_Mercotan

Specifically, that the words for Amazing Grace fit nicely into the tune for Gilligan’s Island, and vice versa.

So can Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”

In fact, it works with any of Dickenson’s poems 9so I’m told, by Wikipedia, a dubious reference if ever there was one).
It is because she wrote in “ballad meter”, which is what the lyrics to Amazing Grace and the theme to Gilligan’s Island were written in.

And to the person who pointed out you can swap “Oh little town of Bethlehem” with “House of the Rising Sun”: they both seem to work with Gilligan’s Island, too.

[Apocalypso]

Oh come all ye faithful vs Twisted Sister’s “We’re not gonna take it”.

[MisterDavid]

@Qadgop_the_Mercotan

Not that far off, per Howard Shore’s version of Elbereth Gilthoniel

:eek:

On the Howard Shore theme:

'Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah' to the tune of 'Fellowship Theme' from The Lord of the Rings

[Fellowship Theme/Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah]

[KennerTheGreat]

@Big_Fat_Harry_Deal

I’ve long enjoyed interchanging the tunes & lyrics of O Canada & O Tannenbaum.

So did this guy, apparently.

[Olentzero]

@74westy

Lately I’ve been playing with singing the words of The Star Spangled Banner to the tune of the old Soviet national anthem. There are some rough spots like gleaming/streaming only have one note for two syllables but on the whole, it works surprisingly well.

Dammit! I came in here to post that. I found that out the roundabout way because the words from both tunes fit The Irish Washerwoman quite nicely.

[MonkeyMensch]

@Olentzero

Dammit! I found that out the roundabout way because the words from both tunes fit The Irish Washerwoman quite nicely.

According to the late Isaac Asimov the lyrics to The Irish Washerwoman are
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
…repeated ad nauseam…that’s in the original Gaelic, of course.

[KennerTheGreat]

@MonkeyMensch

According to the late Isaac Asimov the lyrics to The Irish Washerwoman are
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
…repeated ad nauseam…that’s in the original Gaelic, of course.

Will paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde get my whites their very whitest?

[Yllaria]

@MonkeyMensch

According to the late Isaac Asimov the lyrics to The Irish Washerwoman are
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
…repeated ad nauseam…that’s in the original Gaelic, of course.

I remember that. I used to sing that to my kids.

[Chefguy]

@Dan_Norder

One I’ve been doing for ten years or so is “I’m a Little Teapot” to the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.” It needs to be forced a tad, which works because you leave just enough Ramones in there for people to figure out what you’re doing even if you’re drunk and/or off tune:

**Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go, I’m a little teapot
Nothin’ to do and nowhere to go-oh-oh, I’m a little teapot
I’m a little teapot, I’m short and I’m stout
Here is my handle, and here is my spout
When I get all steamed up, you can hear me shout:
‘Tip me over and pour me ooooouuuuuuuut!’

Bam-bam-bamp-bam ba-bam-bam-bamp-bam - I’m a little teapot**

I’ve not yet gotten up the nerve to do this at karaoke night yet, but I occasionally amaze/amuse/annoy my friends/pets/strangers with it.

My favorite version of ‘teapot’ was on some sitcom many years ago. The actor playing the father does a hard, funky blues riff version on guitar for his young daughter:

buh-dadadadum: I’m a little teapot;
buh-dadadadum: short and stout
buh-dadadadum: here is my handle
etc., etc.