One Song to the Tune of Another

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/20/13 at 11:29pm

What are some theatrical examples of "one song to the tune of another?"

I have long known that you can sing the main sections of "Tomorrow" from Annie against the Jean Valjean theme in "Who Am I" or "One Day More" of Les Miserables.

Today, I realized that you can hum the Doctor Who theme song against "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," and vice versa. If you're curious how to line it up, it should go "whoosh... DOO-WEE-attend the tale of Sweeney Todd... DOO-WOO"

Do you have any other examples?

[sassylash3s]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 12:10am

Not sure if this is what you mean or not, but you can sing the lyrics of "All That's Known" (and I suppose, by extension, "Those You've Known") from Spring Awakening to the tune of "On My Own."

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 12:14am

That's a good example.

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 12:28am

You're looking for rhythms that fit another tune, right? (Not tunes that show up in the middle of another song).

It's not a show tune, but there's a running gag about the Jewish prayer "Adon Olam." Not only does it have about 456 different tunes, but the first line (Adon olam asher malach, v'terem kol, yatzir nivrah) fits just about anything. I did a medley once that included "Hail to the Redskins," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Hernando's Hideway," and the "Star Spangled Banner," among others.

Updated On: 5/21/13 at 12:28 AM

[broadwayfreak4]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 12:59am

The first line of "My Time of Day" from GUYS & DOLLS sounds like "A New Town is a Blue Town" from THE PAJAMA GAME.

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:06am

Pieces of "All I Ask of You" can be sung to "Music of the Night" and vice versa. I'm assuming that ALW did it on purpose, but I'm not sure.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:22am

Jule Styne re-used CALL ME LORELEI from FADE OUT FADE IN,as DOUBLE, DOUBLE in HALLELUJAH BABY.
And you can sing SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN with PART OF THIS WORLD.

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:25am

ALW reused an earlier song as "Love Never Dies."

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 7:24am

I Dreamed A Dream and the Marius/Cosette section in One Day More:

I dreamed a dream in time gone by....

(I did not live until today)

When hope was high and life worth living...

(How can I live when we are parted)

...but a lot of Les Mis is like that...

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 7:42am

NImue's Song from "Camelot" and Come Back to Me from "On A Clear Day"? (btw same lyricist, different composer)

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 12:46pm

Are you talking about a tune being repeated (as the thread title suggests) or what you describe in your first post, which is one tune sung over another song? In the latter case, what is usually shared is the chord progression, not the melody. There's a good chunk of AMERICAN IDIOT that can be sung to the harmony of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire".

But if you want reused melodies, Jerry Herman's "There Is No Tune Like a Show Tune" from an early 60s review quite famously became "It's Today" in MAME. On her Jerry Herman album, Paige O'Hara sings a medley of the two together.

Updated On: 5/21/13 at 12:46 PM

[StageStruckLad]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:01pm

When some of the subway trains go rumbling out of a station, some mechanical part within the train "plays" the first three notes of "Somewhere" ("There's a place..."). I always find myself humming the song after I hear that.

[MusicalTheatreGeek2]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:04pm

There is of course the 'Unlimited theme' in wicked which has the first few notes of 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'!

[CalebMeyer]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:06pm

In "Just You Wait" from My Fair Lady, right before Eliza sings, "One day I'll be famous..." the strings have a little solo that sounds exactly like when Fantine sings, "But the tigers come at night..."

[bwaymizfit2]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:17pm

The fact that The Diplomats Song from CHESS ("Difficult and Dangerous Times") can be sung in counterpoint with the "Inspector Gadget" Theme Song amuses me greatly. It was the 80s, I suppose :)

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 1:33pm

There is of course the 'Unlimited theme' in wicked which has the first few notes of 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'!

As do the first three notes of "Bali Ha'i".

But there are only 12 tones, so it is to be expected that short passages will be repeated from song to song, probably more often than we realize.

The Jerry Herman example above and "Be A Clown"/"Make 'Em Laugh" are examples of entire tunes repeated in new contexts, the latter case apparently accidental.
Updated On: 5/21/13 at 01:33 PM

[jnb9872]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 2:08pm

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that darque might be a fellow anglophile, as the title of the post seems to suggest a familiarity with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, as this is one of their great games. If you've not heard it before, it's truly a lot of silly fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaHqxD3W2e4

Off the topic, though, slightly: one of my favorites is always that a number of trains in the NYC subway, most notably the A train if I recall correctly, when rolling out of a station will squeal the first three notes to "Somwhere" from WEST SIDE STORY perfectly, before screeching off into some atonal nightmares... I always thought it would be fun for a cabaret performer to start "Somewhere" with that continually-upward screech as a gag, but it is admittedly a very small target audience who would get it or enjoy it.

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 2:14pm

The other fun one that often comes up is the tritone resolving upward that famously makes up both "Maria" and "The Simpsons." It's many a West Side Story cast member who have sung "The Simpsons, I just met a girl named The Simpsons!"

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 3:16pm

I have long known that you can sing the main sections of "Tomorrow" from Annie against the Jean Valjean theme in "Who Am I" or "One Day More" of Les Miserables.

You mean a mash-up? I imagine there are millions that work. It's all about matching chord progressions (or tweaking a minor chord progression to match a major or vice-versa). Much of the score to Les Mis was composed using the same chord progressions so the melodies could be combined.

[BewareTheUndertoad]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 6:48pm

In the dance break in "We've Got It" from Seesaw, the horns are playing "It Needs Work" from City of Angels ('Now take a closer look at you, I oughta throw the book at you!)

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 7:00pm

The last however-many-bars of "Two Of A Kind" (Lippa's WILD PARTY) and the last however-many-bars of the title song from ADRIF IN MACAO. In rehearsals for the former, I would always take that play-off and sing the latter's lyrics. :P

[Kad]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 7:57pm

You can combine "You're Just in Love" and "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" into fourt-part counterpoint extremely easily.

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 8:35pm

"Pieces of "All I Ask of You" can be sung to "Music of the Night" and vice versa. I'm assuming that ALW did it on purpose, but I'm not sure."

Well considering those are two songs from the same musical, Andrew certainly reused melodies throughout songs.

[jo]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 10:11pm

In the movie musical version of LES MISERABLES, the new song SUDDENLY is Valjean's stirring and hopeful declaration of his second epiphany ( the first being the one of redemption, with the Bishop) - the discovery of love for another human being for the first time. Towards the end, when Cosette discovers that her father has left ( showing the scene where the weakened Valjean tried to lift a trunk to the carriage), she reprises the melody of SUDDENLY as she sings of her sorrow of possibly losing her adoptive father. Quite a poignant and evocative moment!

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 10:37pm

Although neither of them is a show tune, two of the more well-known duplicates are Smetana's "Moldau" and "Hatikvah," the Israeli national anthem. The time signature changes from three-four to two-four or four-four, but the melody duplication is clear.