# recycling song tunes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 13, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693 "2001-06-13T17:49:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693/1 "2001-06-13T17:49:07Z")
In the column [Was the melody of “The Star Spangled Banner” taken from an old drinking song?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_011.html), Cecil discusses new songs recycling old melodies. As an example, he mentions Weird Al Yankovic. While it is certainly true that many of Weird Al’s more popular songs are set to the music of earlier songs, I think these are a distinctly different category than, say, the Barney song or _the Star-Spangled Banner_. This is because Weird Al’s hits are _parodies_ of the songs. They are intentionally set to the music they mock - they have to be. It is like drawing a caricature of Bill Clinton and not including a phallus. This is a much different thing than _America The Beautiful_ being new words to the tune of _God Save The King/Queen_. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2001, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693/2 "2001-06-13T19:29:31Z")
That’s a gray area Irishman. How about “My Sweet Lord” (George Harrison) vs. “He’s So Fine” (The Chiffons) ? Perhaps Francis Scott Key intentionally wanted to make fun of drunken excesses of the british nobility, and used the tune of a popular english song as a purposeful “slap in the face”. ---
**Author:** ![drasaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@drasaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drasaid)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2001, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693/3 "2001-06-14T00:06:17Z")
Hey, what I always get a kick out of is that the Ode to Joy from Beethovan’s Ninth Symphony is from a poem by Schiller, and in that poem is a verse praising golden beer and its delightful foam! Beethovan put away a lot of alcohol in his life so it is odd he decided to leave that verse out. It cracks me up that the Ode to Joy was also a drinking song. And to beer, no less; not wine. Makes singing it on Sunday in the choir at Holy Name a lot more fun just knowing that… ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2001, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693/4 "2001-06-14T01:03:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > \*\* > > Perhaps Francis Scott Key intentionally wanted to make fun of drunken excesses of the british nobility, and used the tune of a popular english song as a purposeful “slap in the face”. > > \*\* Curiously, in L. Sprague DeCamp’s biography of H.P. Lovecraft, Lovecraft sings the original lyrics to the same purpose. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2001, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693/5 "2001-06-14T01:39:03Z")
A) I’m not sure that tunes were copyrightable back them. B) In any case, British copyrights weren’t worth spit in the US. (They remained fragile, at best, until the aftermath of the Tolkien Scandal of 1965.) C) “America the Beautiful” is not “God Save the Queen”. “America”, _alias_ “My Country, 'Tis of Thee” is “God Save the Queen”. “America the Beautiful” is “Materna”, _alias_ “O Mother, Dear Jerusalem”. D) Honestly, hasn’t anyone here ever looked at a hymnal and noticed that all the tunes have titles that are usually unconnected with the printed words? The idea of a tune having one and only one proper set of words (outside of parody) is a very modern one. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2001, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693/6 "2001-06-14T14:15:25Z")
George Harrison was sued for plagiarism and lost. [http://www.frontiernet.net/~ajs/intro.htm](http://www.frontiernet.net/~ajs/intro.htm) > [@](#): > > Bright Tunes Music Corp. v. Harrisongs Music, LTD. > ABKCO Music, Inc. v. Harrisongs Music, LTD. > ABKCO Music, Inc. v. Harrisongs Music, LTD. > > \< snip \> > Given the foregoing, I find for the plaintiff on the issue of plagiarism, and set the action down for trial on November 8, 1976 on the issue of damages and other relief as to which the plaintiff may be entitled. The foregoing constitutes the Court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law. > > So Ordered. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2001, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recycling-song-tunes/68693/7 "2001-06-14T14:19:34Z")
It was common practice in Key’s time to re-use popular tunes, what we would call “pop” tunes, i.e. ballads, drinking songs, folk songs. I doubt if he was trying to make some kind of “statement”, other than the statement that “this is the only tune I know offhand that fits my poem, both metrically and stylistically”. Something simple like the tune for “Barbara Allen” obviously wouldn’t have worked.