Andrew Lloyd Webber Recycles

In the late '60s Rice and ALW wrote several songs for one Ross Hannaman, but her pop music career never took off. The entire tune of one song, "Down Thru Summer," was reused extensively in Evita:


And if ever I go too far...

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Updated On: 7/18/12 at 09:36 PM

Love Never Dies' title song used to be called The Heart is Slow to Learn which was then turned into Our Kind of Love for The Boys in the Photograph (though I think the song was eventually cut from that stage show).

"The Heart Is Slow To Learn"? Really? TWO lyricists came up with that ridiculous line?

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I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM was originally an attempt at a pop tune called KANSAS MORNING.

Seriously.

Original version

"I Don't Know How to Love Him" had originally been published with different lyrics in the autumn of 1967, the original title being "Kansas Morning." The melody's main theme has been come under some scrutiny for being non-original, being so similar to a theme from Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E minor. In December 1969 and January 1970, when Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice completed Jesus Christ Superstar, Rice wrote new lyrics to the tune of "Kansas Morning" to provide the solo number for the character of Mary Magdalene (Rice and Webber's agent David Land would purchase the rights to "Kansas Morning" back from Southern Music for £50)

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Webber recycles pretty frequently. In addition to those already mentioned, there's parts of "There's Me" which was eventually cut from Starlight Express that became "A Gift For Living Well" in The Woman in White.

The "Love Never Dies" title song doesn't bother me too much, because as far as I know, even when it was "The Heart is Slow to Learn" it was still originally written for the squeal to the Phantom of the Opera. When Webber abandoned that idea the melody was recycled for "The Beautiful Game," and then when Love Never Dies was picked up again, the song was put back, The Beautiful Game was reworked, the song was cut from that show completely, and the show was retitled The Boys in the Photograph.

Updated On: 7/18/12 at 10:53 PM

^I agree. I sort of felt like the melody deserved something better in Love Never Dies. With different lyrics it could have been a nice act two song for Christine to sing a la "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," and have it come out of the plot, instead of just being a stand alone song that she sings at the concert, but I get that that moment needed a gorgeous melody too. The whole show is unfortunately leading up to Christine's performance of that song which is not very interesting.

Updated On: 7/18/12 at 11:28 PM

^Yes! Webber definitely has a problem recycling melodies from other composers as well. "Make Up My Heart" is totally "Musetta's Waltz" from La Boheme. At least when Jonathan Larson did it -- it was a deliberate and loving homage.

And of course a ton of Phantom's music was written for an earlier Aspects of Love (as they say in the Aspects companion book), when ALW decided it sounded too heavy and gothic for Aspects and moved on. As well the original version Chanson D'Enfance from Aspects, as sung by Brightman but cut from the stage version had a bridge part that became the main melody of If Only from Whistle Down the Wind.

From what Lord Webber claimed, it was a sort of a "retroactive" recycling, since he apparently wrote that tune for a proposed "Sunset Boulevard" musical in 1970s, but then abandoned the project and used it in "Gumshoe" instead, and then put it back into "Sunset Boulevard" when the project eventually came to fruition twenty years later.

By the way, does anyone know where I could find "Down on the Farm?" I know it's the original incarnation of "High Flying, Adored" and I've been dying to listen to it!

By the way, which part in particular are you referring to when you guys say "the bridge to As If We Never Said Goodbye?" :-/

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This list of ALW's self-plagiarism and borrowings from elsewhere is a combination of my own observations plus those of someone else, so there may be slight mistakes/overlaps.



1) Love is Here (Like of us) TRAVEL HOPEFULLY from JEEVES / BY JEEVES
2) The Likes of Us (Likes of Us) VARIATION 18 from VARIATIONS / DANCE
3) You Won't Care About her Anymore (Likes of Us) I DON'T THINK I'M WANTED BACK AT HOME (Jacob's Journey) / NEVER AGAIN (By Jeeves)
4) Down Thru' Summer (Single) became the coda in BUENOS AIRES
5) 1969 (Single) used themes from Beethoven's F‹R ELISE and Dvorak's New World Symphony
6) Probably on Thursday (Single) the instrumental solo became the last lines in JOSEPH: "Give me my colour coat..."
7) Kansas Morning (Single) Same opening line as Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (First Movement) and melody recycled as I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE HIM from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
Any Dream Will Do (JOSEPH) originally "I FANCY YOU", a song which TR and ALW wanted to record with Herman's Hermits
9) Eurovision Song (Eurovision) became SALADIN DAYS in "Come Back Richard", an ALW and TR show performed only once, and again musically recycled for KING HEROD'S SONG
10) The First Book of Samuel - this show doesn't last a minute, and the melody became SUPERSTAR
11) Summer Dream - a low point in the original JEEVES. ALW was meant to have recycled the melody for EVITA
12) Half a Moment (Jeeves) - the opening lines are the codas in AS IF WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE ('Countless spinning memories spin before my view/Like some toy kaleidoscope: images of you' => 'I don't want to be alone - that's all in the past/This world's waited long enough - I'm at home at last'
13) Gumshoe / Odessa File Themes - SUNSET BOULEVARD and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
14) Phantom of the Opera Theme - identical to the chromatic chord in Pink Floyd's Echoes
15) Buenos Aires - DOWN THRU SUMMER employed as the coda, with an obscure song RED ROOM to become the rest of the melody
16) High Flying Adored - DOWN ON THE FARM (with some lyrics still intact, e.g. "stars in my/your eyes when I/you crawl(ed) in (th)at night") and an unreleased song from JEEVES
17) Unexpected Song - LITERARY MEN from JEEVES. Similar to a recurring theme in Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY, first heard in the wedding scene ('Ne vidia già color di the…') and later in the opening to 'C'E…Entrate!'
1 You Made me Think You Were in Love - the original version in Tell Me On A Sunday had a jumpy section which quoted from a song in JEEVES
19) Memory (Cats) - has a strong likeness to Puccini, and was intended for an early - if unsettled - version of SUNSET BOULEVARD, and a one-act musical about Puccini and Leoncavallo's race to write the "La BohËme" opera. The line 'Tonight will be a memory too' resembles a phrase of music from 'O Suave Fanciulla' in LA BOHEME. Sounds very close to 'Un Bel di' from MADAM BUTTERFLY, as well as Ravel's 'Bolero'
20) Engine of Love - written before STARLIGHT EXPRESS and even added (after it's re-worded version was cut) to the show
21) There's Me - this should have been a song in JEEVES
22) Requiem - contains strong sections which sound like CATS
23) Married Man - Sarah Brightman was to sing this song with the London Philharmonic, around the time her and Andrew were engaged. We can obviously see why it was abandoned - and how (inevitably) the tune became MUSIC OF THE NIGHT!
24) I Don't Talk to Strangers - a song by Placido Domingo which was recycled (melodically) as ALL I ASK OF YOU and THE POINT OF NO RETURN
25) Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again - combined with Angel of Music, this evolved from an earlier version of ASPECTS OF LOVE
26) CRICKET - nearly everything from this show has made it into future Lloyd Webber productions.
27) Love Changes Everything - recycled from a number written late in the American tour of STARLIGHT EXPRESS
2 Vaults of Heaven - The Jurassic Park Theme
29) Whistle Down the Wind - Steinman is recycling lyrics from several of his older songs, most notably "Future Ain't What it Used to Be"
30) Tyre Tracks and Broken Hearts - melodically, from a song in the American SONG AND DANCE (English Girls)
31) If Only - another member of Lloyd Webber's childhood Toy Suite
32) 'The Heart is Slow to Learn' -> recycled as 'Our Kind of Love' and used in THE BEAUTIFUL GAME -> AGAIN recycled as the title song for LOVE NEVER DIES. Sounds very similar to the theme from Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT.
33) The Phantom of the Opera - Title song from PHANTOM recycled from JOSEPH'S Close Every Door and Benjamin's Calypso.
34) THE WOMAN IN WHITE - "Please you needn't fear me" tune directly lifted from WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND'S "No-one's ever looked at me..."
35) JOURNEY TO THE CEMETERY from the PHANTOM film - recycled from THE BEAUTIFUL GAME
36) ANGEL OF MUSIC from PHANTOM - see the middle section of Sondheim's 'NOT WHILE I'M AROUND'
37) Superstar from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR - Tim Rice comments in his autobiography that this is extremely similar to 'Rosemary' from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM
3 End section of MEMORY extremely similar to "I can make your sad heart sing..." and "Silent music starts to play..." from SUNSET BOULEVARD's 'WITH ONE LOOK'
39) MUSIC OF THE NIGHT contains a repeated phase that, according to a reviewer for TIME magazine, seems to quote "Come to Me, Bend to Me" from BRIGADOON
40) I BELIEVE MY HEART - first notes of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad)
41) EVITA's "But we still have the magic we always had..." is set exactly to the same tune as SUNSET's "And there was only one kind of entertainment on hand...".
42) Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again's bridge is lifted from JEEVES' Half a Moment.
43) JOSEPH's "Anyone from anywhere can make it if he gets a lucky break" turns up in PHANTOM's Prima Donna: "He's abusing our position/In addition he wants money...".
44) SUNSET's "I love flannel on a man/This will complement his tan" originally appeared in ASPECTS, e.g. "Why did I agree/To accept this bloody tour?", "Have a lovely night/Come and see me when you can" etc.
45) And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) - this is a straight melodic lift from an actual Peronist marching song called Es el Pueblo.
46) I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You from EVITA recalls a Beatles song, according to the critic Howard Kissel, presumably Yesterday.
47) Phrases in SUNSET BOULEVARD such as "I can say anything I want with my eyes" and "I will not have it butchered" echo "We make certain the doors are barred" and "We make certain our men are there" from PHANTOM.
4 Music of the Night - The "Open up your mind/Let your fantasies unwind..." melody seems to be lifted from ëQuello che taceteí, the love duet in Act 1 from Puccini's opera LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST
49) With One Look - a reworking of Will This Last Forever? from THE LIKES OF US
50) As If We Never Said Goodbye - Formerly Lazy Days of Summer from CRICKET
51) The melody in PHANTOM at the words, "And in his eyes/all the sadness of the world," is closely related to Liu's suicide music in the last act of Puccini's Turandot.
52) The line 'Silent music starts to play' from SUNSET BLVD's 'With One Look' is the same music for 'Step up my friend and be my host' from 'Be My Host' in Richard Rodgers' NO STRINGS
53) 'When the dark unfolds its wings/Do you hear the strangest things?' from 'The Beauty Underneath' in LOVE NEVER DIES is to the same tune as 'I want someone with a knack/Not just any studio hack' in Salome from SUNSET BLVD
54) Phrase of music that concludes 'Waltz for Eva and Che' and is used as the bridge for the original version of 'Buenos Aires' bears a very strong similarity to 'Theme for Young Lovers' by The Shadows. This song also contains phrases similar to 'They'll all talk about us when we die' from 'The Last Supper' in JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
55) "I know that I've wronged you..." from 'If Not For Me, For Her' in THE WOMAN IN WHITE recycled in LOVE NEVER DIES in 'Till I Hear You Sing' ('And sometimes, at night time, I dream that you are there...').
56) Part of 'Chanson d'enfance' from ASPECTS reused in 'Too Much in Love to Care' in SUNSET
57) 'Stop. Wait. Good.' from ASPECTS - reworking of Prokofiev's 'Gavotte' section of Symphony no. 1
5 Not a stolen theme as such, but 'Pilate and Christ' from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR is very reminiscent of the Adagio section from Prokofiev's Symphony no. 5 in B flat
59) 'On this Night of a Thousand Stars' from EVITA apes Pérez Prado's 1955 hit "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White'
60) The music that is heard on the soundtrack to the awful PHANTOM movie when Raoul falls into the trap when he goes into the bowels of the opera house to find Christine is a reworking of 'Nature of the Beast' from WHISTLE
61) 'The Coney Island Waltz' from ALW's ill-conceived Phantom sequel is, like much else in the score for LOVE NEVER DIES, reworked from WOMAN IN WHITE (in this case the song 'Perspective' from Act 1)
62) 'In the garden of Bethlehem' line from SUPERSTAR is the same as the opening notes to 'E lucevan le stele' from Puccini's TOSCA
63) 'Art of the Possible' in EVITA recycled from ALW's 'Miller's Theme' in his score for THE ODESSA FILE

Obviously some of that list seems more direct whereas a lot of little bits I think could be charitably said to not be all that close or unintentional (you can nitpick a lot with a number of composers that way--just ALW perhaps more), but I'm baffled by this one:

"37) Superstar from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR - Tim Rice comments in his autobiography that this is extremely similar to 'Rosemary' from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM "

What version of Forum has something called Rosemary in it?