For some strange, unknown reason, sometimes I wake up with a song or music running through my head and I can't rest until I work out why this is happening. So this morning as I awoke, "Amazing Grace" was playing in my mind and, along with that was "America The Beautiful!"
After a few moments, the lyrics from "America The Beautiful" and the tune of "Amazing Grace" began to synch up and I suddenly realized that they match up completely! Certainly the tunes are different, but the lyrics from one DO match the melody of the other.
Is this the result of my bored out of my mind playing tricks on me, or is there some connection between the two songs? Perhaps the Lyricist of "America" had "Amazing Grace" in the back of his mind as well when he wrote the lyrics of America?"
Maybe some of the talented lyrics switchers who post about music often here at Top Shelf can shine some light on this weird phenomenon?
Musically puzzled.
Catherine Linda Michel
Comments
It happens
The amazing thing to me is when someone can sing the lyrics of one song to the tune of a different one. I mentioned one time a group I saw at Comic-Con who sang "Gilligan's Island" to the tune of "Stairway to Heaven" and another friend mentioned that "Pinball Wizard" and "Folsom Prison" are congruent whereupon another friend present promptly sang both of those songs to the opposite tunes. :)
What it is, is that musical forms have similar patterns of stress and rhythm, so that lyrics can be fit to different tunes in a wide stretch of songs. So many Hymns fit each other's tunes and the same is true of many Pop Ballads fitting each other.
For an original take on the same idea, Weird Al's grunge ballad, "My Baby's In Love with Eddie Vedder" is sung to a Zydeco tune. The effect is hilarious. :)
For a different effect, consider "Yesterday" which sounds like a pop ballad but has the mixed structure of Jazz and Classical forms.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Here it is
Little Roger and the Goosebumps' masterpiece: Stairway to Gilligan's Island
Bad taste alert
As Erin mentioned 'Yesterday'....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PgeTo9WdUs
Believe it or not, this is actually in better taste than the version I know!
Scrambled Eggs
Paul wrote the music for Yesterday before he wrote the lyrics and had some substitute words he used while working on the tune with the key phrase being "Scrambled Eggs" instead of "Yesterday". :)
What the heck rhymes with Eggs? Legs? Begs? Kegs? Meg's? Pegs? Regs? Must have been weird lyrics. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Interesting
The group I saw perform it, a capella no less, but much less polished that the Goosebumps, was called "Dr. Raoul Duke and His All Human Orchestra" and featured a number of people who went on to become comic book, illustration and comic strip professionals, including my friend Scott Shaw!, creator of Captain Carrot and currently working on the Annoying Orange comic. I THINK that was sometime around 1974-76 which would make it before the Goosebumps released their recording. And if I remember right, the All Human Orchestra weren't the first ones to do it at a con, just the first time I had seen it.
Led Zep threatened to sue the Goosebumps for copyright infringement, and I believe would have lost since parody is protected as free speech in US Law. (English law too but differently.) Weird Al usually gets permissions for his parodies but legally probably doesn't have to. The courts have been inconsistent in some cases, though, so maybe Al is being wise.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Doxology
As a teenager, my youth group used to sing the "Doxology":
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures below
Praise Him all ye heavenly hosts
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost
Aaaamen.
to the tune of Jamaican Farewell.
We liked it because it drove the conservative Presbyterian octogenarians in the church nuts.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Metre and rhythm
They match up on a lot of songs because the basic rhythm and word patterns are the same, and as long as the time signature works, you are away and running.
Try singing the Tune of "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" with the words to "House of the Rising Sun"
Metrical tunes
By counting up the number of sylables per line of a song you can figure out what other tunes it will interchange with: Amazing Grace has one of the most common of meters, 8.6.8.6 aka 86.86 aka CM. The Cyber Hymnal lists 377 tunes the words of Amazing Grace will fit.
Sometimes when church choir directors think the same old tune a hymn is normally sung to is too boring, too old or too something, out comes the metrical index and the lyrics get attached to another tune.
Disregard. my count was off.
Never mind.
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
One song to the tune of another
In the UK there is a radio comedy programme called "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" one section of which has the players singing the words of one song to the tune of another. The disparity between the songs emphasises the comedy, as can be heard in this clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXkTHI79T-U