In the late 60s and for much of the 70s the US experienced a revival of 50s R&R and R&B. One of my favorite songs that I had not heard as a kid was The Chantels’ Maybe, a perfect Doo-Wop confection. It sounded vaguely familiar, but it took me years to connect it with Janis Joplin’s Maybe, though they shared space in my collection. D’oh!
More recently, I was watching a Harry Anderson magic special and there was a shell game segment accompanied by a vocal rag I later found was The Swingle Singers’ The Wanderer. I was a few years quicker this time, though I was concentrating on Harry’s hands (a pointless waste of effort–the kid’s good) and humming along to a vaguely familiar melody until the singer went down while I went up and said, “No, you’re singing the left hand!” Yep, another favorite, Scott Joplin’s Solace, except not nearly as heartbreaking.
What two songs did you take too long in realizing they were the same?
Not really sure what you’re asking here. I’ve heard a couple of very dissimilar versions of “Mother Popcorn” and “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and at least three different songs by Louis Jordan with identical (or at least interchangeable) melodies (“All For the Love of Lil,” “Slender, Tender and Tall” and “I Like 'Em Fat Like That.” The third of these was apparently an answer song to the second, but the man was clearly a pioneer of recycling). Bob Dylan’s cover of “Man of Constant Sorrow” bears little resemblance to the Soggy Bottom Boys’.
Possibly the most famous example of the same melody used for two songs (on purpose to make a story point, in this case) would be Meredith Willson’s Seventy-Six Trombones and Goodnight, My Someone.
I loved the first two albums by the original Jeff Beck Group (with Rod Stewart on vocals): Truth and Beck-Ola. Both albums featured an "Elvis Presley cover. But while their version of “Jailhouse Rock” sounds pretty much like Elvis, their cover of “All Shook Up” sounded absolutely nothing like Elvis’ original. Indeed, I probably heard it a few dozen songs before I caught on that they were the same song.
Truth also featured a cover of “Shapes of Things,” a song Beck had recorded with the Yardbirds earlier. You’d never know it was the same song:
The Carter Family’s “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” is the same melody as Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life” (and the Kitty Wells reply (written by J. D. Miller) “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”), as well as Roy Acuff’s “Great Speckled Bird”.
A local loud rock station had a promo that said, “We don’t play Faith Hill, but we’d do her, too.” Totally shallow, misogynistic, and dismissive of her considerable singing talent, but day-am! Tim, what did you do to mess THAT up?
Actually, the title Allan Sherman gave the song was “A Letter from Camp.”
I don’t know if this counts for the thread, but for years, I insisted to anyone who would listen that parts of “Eleanor Rigby” sounded strangely like the theme to Psycho. People told me I was crazy. Apparently not, though, thanks to the internet. I’ve seen the music side by side, and someone who did arrangements for the Beatles finally said that yes, he was influenced by Bernard Hermann’s music score for Psycho.
The theme song to The Animaniacs is mostly lifted from a polka called “There is a Tavern in the Town”. Though it didn’t take me a long time to realize that; I noticed the first time I heard the polka.
And in the musical Man of La Mancha, Aldonza’s theme (“I was born in a ditch to a mother who left me there…”) is basically the same tune as Don Quixote’s, except much more detailed-- It’s like it’s saying that ugly reality is more “real” than mere fantasies.
