Someone recently pointed out to me that the poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” can be sung to the melody of “Hernando’s Hideaway”:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow, Olé.
Etcetera.
What other instances are there, where a familiar poem matches a familiar song?
The classic “Oscar Meyer Bologna” song can be sung to the tune of “Lili Marleen.”
The classic example is that any of Emily Dickinson’s poems can be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
etc.
“Amazing Grace” can be sung to the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song.
Or to the tune of “Oh Susannah” - I’m not familiar with the tune to the song you quoted, so pardon me if they’re the same melody.
Actually, I remember seeing Fozzie Bear sing that poem to “Hernando’s Hideaway” on “The Muppet Show,” ages ago.
Sounds like a Cafe Society thread to me.
Now that you mention it, “Oh, Susannah” would work too. For reference purposes, here is a link to a site which has the melody to “Yellow Rose of Texas” on it. (One of the few I found that doesn’t just start playing it as soon as the page opens.)
Reaching back into the abyss of my English literature studies, all of Emily Dickinson’s poems were written in iambic quadrameter, which means each line consists of eight syllable with stress on the odd-numbered syllables. Since this is also a fairly simple melodic line for song-writing, it’s not surprising that there’s more than one song that matches up.
Thus endeth the educational hijack. You may now resume your scheduled thread.
You can sing “Green Eggs and Ham” to the tune of “99 Luftballons.” The Seuss lyrics make more sense than the originals. 