Then, of course, there’s Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne.” The melody is really just a slowed-down version of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” (Hum the overture slowly, and you’ll see.)
“In the Still of the Night” was written by Cuba Gooding Sr.
True, but more people nowadays know him as a sausage maker than as a singer.
Blackbox’s Everything’s Gonna Be All Right has Air on G String as it’s melody.
Pachabel gets another nod…
Hook by Blues Traveller uses Pachabel’s Canon for the rhythm and melody. AND the harmonica solo is the fast violin part.
Usram writes:
> Phil Collins - A Groovy Kind Of Love (Clementi: Sonatine in G)
Is Phil Collins’s version of this song better known than the original? It was originally done by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders in 1967. It was written by Dan Finnerty.
Tony Sheridan and the Beatles had a minor hit in Britain and America in 1963-64 with My Bonnie, arranged from the 1881 song My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean by Charles Pratt.
The 1972 instrumental hit Joy, by Apollo 100, was based on Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.
Walter Murphy’s 1976 hit A Fifth of Beethoven was adapted from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
Game-show host Bert Convey was part of the pop trio The Cheers in the '50s. They hit #6 with “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” in 1955.
Damn, got his name wrong again. Should be Convy.
In Jimmy Dean’s case, it’s not quite that clear-cut. He was featured in Esquire a year or two ago in their “What I’ve Learned” column, where he described making sausage as a child with his uncle, who’d stick his hairy, unsanitary arms into the meat to mix it up just right. He may not have inherited the company, but sausage-making is definitely in his background, more than in the average American’s.
That tune in Jesus Christ Superstar that begins with the lyrics:
What shall we do about Jesus of Nazareth?
What can we do with a carpenter king?
I forgot the name but it’s the one where they decide: This Jesus must die,
must die must die, this Jesus must die,
for the fate of the nation this Jesus must die
Anyway, it’s a clear ripoff of the Bourree from Bach’s Eminor lute suite.
Eric Clapton’s immortal classic-rock hit “Layla” was based on an epic Sufi love poem, Layla and Majnun, by the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami (1140-1202).
Oops!:smack:
Forgot The Byrds Turn, Turn, Turn with words from the Book of Ecclesiastes.
A most unusual source for a rock song.
Oooh, I just thought of a pretty obscure one. I’m going on memory here, but I believe an ELP song, I think it’s called The Knife from their first album, is strongly based on a piece by Lehos Janocek called something to the effect of Symphonetta or Symphonia* or something like that. Of course, ELP was clearly conscious of classical music (e.g. Copland’s Hoedown, Ginastera’s Tocatta, and the aforementioned Mussorsky’s Picture’s at an Exhibition) so it shouldn’t be that surprising.
Also remember that instrumental group “B. Bumble and the Stingers” who did Nut Rocker based on Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” rather speeded up. Then Emerson, Lake and Palmer redid it in the 1970s (IIRC) and bumped the tempo even faster.
Led Zeppelin’s “Friends” borrows its melody from Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War”.
Pete Seegar adapted Ecclesiastes and wrote the music for “Turn, Turn, Turn.” The Byrds were great at choosing works by others to cover.
Speaking of the 1812 Overture, Rush did a riff on that in their “Overture” on the “2112” album. (And I guess you can credit Jesus with the lyrics “And the meek shall inherit the earth.”)
Yep, a piece which was also used in a King Crimson song from their album In the Wake of the Poseiden and covered by ELP (as Emerson, Lake, and Powell).
(Jeez, I must be coming off as quite the ELP groupee in this thread. I mean I like them and all but… )
Right now I’m listening to “Inna Godda Da Vida” by Iron Butterfly. During the organ solo in the middle it has a few passages that were taken from the Christmas carol “God Bless Ye Merry Gentleman.”