Panic! At The Disco has a new song out that samples Chicago’s “Questions 67 & 68.” The song is “Hallelujah”.
That’s not something you hear every day! It got me to thinking…what other non-rap/hip-hop songs have sampled or intentionally borrowed riffs from other rock songs?
Eddie Money’s “Take Me Home Tonight” samples The Ronnettes “Be My Baby.”
Barenaked Ladies lift riffs from Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” and “Spirit of Radio” in their song “Grade 9.”
Others? Please don’t link to articles/compilations/lists from the web.
I’m not sure if you’d call this a sample, but it’s not really a remix or a cover. They took the, um, melody (yeah, that’s the ticket) from Crazy Train and did their own song over it.
I’m not sure if you’d call this a sample, but it’s not really a remix or a cover. They took the, um, melody (yeah, that’s the ticket) from Crazy Train and did their own song over it.
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That’s a hip-hop song, though. Kind of unremarkable, which is why I wasn’t looking for them
April Wine’s ‘I Like to Rock’ has a piece at the end where one guitar plays ‘Daytripper’, another comes in with ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ and the 3rd Guitar plays the ‘I Like to Rock’ riff over the other 2.
The Kinks’ song “Destroyer” re-uses the riff from their earlier hit “All Day and All of the Night.”
And the Bangles inserted the line “You better hang on to yourself” into “Glitter Years” (with vocalist Michael Steele singing the line in her best Bowie impression).
Eddie Money didn’t “sample” the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” in the way that rappers “sample” old records. Rather, Eddie hired Ronnie Spector, the original vocalist, to sing a few of her old lines from that song on the new record.
I can think of many rock records in which someone plays a lick (or a bar) from a well-known song. For example, Sugarloaf copped the Beatles riff from “I Feel Fine” in their hit “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You.”
I can think of a few songs that feature snippets of the artists’ earlier recordings. For instance, King Crimson’s “The Devil’s Triangle” features a bit of their earlier song “In The Court of the Crimson King,” and Robert Plant’s “Tall Cool One” features snippets of Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean,” “Custard Pie,” " “Whole Lotta Love” and “Black Dog.”
But rock records that feature bits from earlier rock records by other artists? Hard to think of, though I’m sure some will come to mind after I close here.
Matthew Fisher’s “Going for a Song” samples “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (at about 2:50) – or, at least, the organ riff, which Fisher played on the original (though at the time he didn’t claim to be the songwriter).
Not rock, per se, but pop - Madonna’s “Hung Up” samples ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”. IIRC, it’s almost unique in using an ABBA sample - they’re very very picky about who they let use their music, and she had to pay a LOT for it.
Led Zeppelin’s opening to “Rock and Roll” references/pays homage (or “steals” if you want to be less charitable, but of all the Zep ripoffs, this one falls into “homage” category for me) to Little Richard’s “Keep on Knockin’”.
Yeah, that’s why I put “sample” in quotes. Borrowed, used, embedded, riffed, had someone come sing a bit of the song, etc. That is also why I’m not looking for rap/hip-hop answers.
Please share.
Whatever sort of sample you can think of, please share.
And then there’s “Top of the Pops” from Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round Pt. 1 – a satirical look at the music biz, it uses the riff from “Land of 1000 Dances” as background for the bit where the new star is being interviewed.
