Similar Song Compositions

[JHartnow]

Posted: 6/28/05 at 2:48pm

As a fan of continuity, I love when I spot composer "signatures" in music. Take Billy Finn for example. I was just listening to "And They're Off" from A NEW BRAIN, and I realized how similar it is to "The I Love You Song" from SPELLING BEE. In form, not content...although there are a few references that can be extruded in their similitude. Other same-composer comparisons that I've noticed are Jonathan Larson's "No More" from TICK, TICK BOOM! and the opening song "Rent" from RENT. "Somewhere That's Green" from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is compositionally similar to "Part of Your World" from THE LITTLE MERMAID. A lot of the Ashman/Menken music was brilliant yet similar, especially when listening to the scores they created for Disney. I have no problem with this at all...I say, arguably, if it works and it's sucessful, do it again!

Although there have got to be TONS of examples out there, what others have YOU spotted? I'm curious...

-John

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 6/28/05 at 2:51pm

A lot of Stephen Schwartz's songs repeat themselves. The opening of "Something Bad" in Wicked sounds very much like the opening of "Out There" from Hunchback. "Magic To Do" and "As Long As You're Mine" have very similar opening chords as well.

[Shilo_Bway]

Posted: 6/28/05 at 2:59pm

I have noticed that in Wicked and also in Phantom there is much repetition

[peach]

Posted: 6/28/05 at 3:22pm

I'll pick Schwartz (and this is not a dig; I am a Schwartz fan) since I've had Godspell, Pippin and Wicked (among other things) in my CD changer lately:

Extraordinary (Pippin) and Popular (Wicked) are strikingly similar(Extraordinary liiike me! -er- Very very popular liiiike me!). Lyrically it's similar as well.

All for the Best (Godspell) and Wonderful (Wicked)
Turn Back O Man (Godspell) and On The Right Track (Pippin)

And this is slightly off - but the little organ solo in Morning Glow (Pippin) always reminds me of Phantom of the Opera (yes, I know that's Webber!).

Updated On: 6/28/05 at 03:22 PM

[WOSQ]

Posted: 6/28/05 at 3:35pm

You could practically do an entire cabaret act on Jerry Herman borrowing from Jerry Herman.

However Jerry did rile Richard Rodgers when Mr. Rodgers heard the title song to Dear World ("Come take your medicine, dear world.") and heard similarities to Oh, What a Beautiful Morning. Go ahead, sing them.

Rodgers retaliated with the title song to Two By Two when he wrote "Two by two, bum BUM, the animals..." which was a direct quote from "Yes New York, bum BUM, its really us..."

Jerry Herman also borrowed liberally from a song called Sunflower or something like that when he wrote Hello Dolly. I have compared the sheet music. It is very, very similar. A lawsuit was filed and this infringement cost David Merrick dearly.