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You are here: Home / Music / The song remains the same

The song remains the same

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The other day I watched “Moneyball” and it struck me that song the girl sings, “The Show”, sounds exactly like that awful You Done Done Me, and they both sound like that start with my toes, then I wrinkle my nose song and like that new version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow that now accompanies many YouTube videos.

So I thought it would be a good time for another songs that sound alike thread! In the past we’ve covered Lady Madonna/What I Got and Keep Me Hanging on/Vertigo and All Day and All Of The Night/You Really Got Me Going.

Here’s a couple others: I Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Come/The Peanuts Christmas song and Tired of Being Alone/I Love The Nightlife.

What are some other good ones?

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    No good ones, but you now have a picture with a funny caption in your BJ email account.

  2. 2.

    M31

    You can sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “When the Saints come marching in” at the same time, in case you were wondering.

  6. 6.

    Randy P

    The opening chords of “Twenty-Five or Six to Four” sound exactly like the opening of some more recent song which I forget. Same chords, same rhythm. Direct steal.

  12. 12.

    Buddy H

    Radiohead’s “Creep” reminds me so much of “The Air That I Breathe” by the Hollies. As a matter of fact, there was a lawsuit.

  13. 13.

    Buddy H

    David Bowie’s “Queen Bitch” has the exact same guitar part as Eddie Cochran’s “Three Steps To Heaven.”

    And didn’t Bob Dylan borrow from Neil Young’s “Helpless” when he wrote “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”?

  15. 15.

    srv

    All the hipsters music sounds familiar, they’ve recycled everything, changed the lyrics and added autotune.

    Reminds me of democrats.

  16. 16.

    RSA

    This may just be me, but whenever I hear Motherland, by Natalie Merchant, I always think of the song over the opening credits in the TV show Firefly.

  18. 18.

    Xenos

    Aside from the infamous identical chord progressions in “Hotel California” and Tull’s “We Used to Know”, we have a very recent song that flat-out steals the melody from the ending of Jimmy Buffet’s “Valcano”.

    I have been humming the Buffet song for no good reason for days, so it must have been my subconscious picking that up somehow.

  19. 19.

    Buddy H

    The Sheryl Crow song “All I wanna do is have some fun” sort of reminds me of “Stuck in the Middle With You”

    And of course, “My Sweet Lord” ended up in front of a judge.

  24. 24.

    Buddy H

    Led Zep’s “Boogie With Stu” directly lifted from Ritchie Valens’ “Ooh My Head” which was lifted from Little Richard’s “Ooh My Soul”

  25. 25.

    gbear

    The Four Tops ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’ and ‘The Same Old Song’. I’m pretty sure everyone was in on the joke for the second song.

    Also, anything from Jackson Browne’s first three albums and anything by Dawes.

  27. 27.

    Mike E

    @srv:

    All the hipsters music my posts sounds familiar, theyI’ve recycled everything, changed the lyrics and added autotune.

    Yes, it’s what we’ve come to expect.

  28. 28.

    Brother Dingaling

    She Hates Me by Puddle of Mud and I Saw Your Mommy by Dead Milkmen

    Also You Need Loving by the Small Faces and Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin

  32. 32.

    Tree With Water

    @Buddy H: Circa 1974, Dylan appeared at a star studded concert at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco to benefit the city’s sports programs. The concert was broadcast live on radio, and I distinctly recall that the refrain from Helpless was performed as the introduction to Knockin’ On Heavens Door. I remember how impressed I was at how seamless it sounded, as if it had been written that way. It was beautiful.

  33. 33.

    Pogonip

    I just looked at news headlines: Ferguson grand jury will not reconvene until Monday at the earliest.

    Whoever said they wanted to save day-after-Thanksgiving shopping seems to have called it correctly.

    If they do indict the cop, will the local whites riot? Is there any way the status quo can be saved in this situation?

  34. 34.

    wasabi gasp

    @srv: You’ll love Foxygen. The whole album is a copy of the past. It’s like they copy/pasted together parts of classic tunes, then traced over them with their own performance.

  35. 35.

    Buddy H

    @Pogonip:

    excellent tweet from Dave Zirin:

    “Wish same people telling #ferguson protestors to be non-violent, would send that message to the Darren Wilson fans lining up to buy guns.”

  38. 38.

    Xenos

    @Omnes Omnibus: that leads to an interesting question: borrowing implies the original is not much changed, stealing implies, well, that the song was converted for the use of a better artist.

    I am not sure that really works in most cases. Zep stole money by marketing a less original product, and the Eagles/Tull example it it is clear (to my ear) that the cheesier and less tightly performed song became more successful.

  39. 39.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Xenos: I interpret it this way: when you borrow, you don’t intended to make it your own. When you steal, you do intend to make it yours.

  40. 40.

    Randy P

    @superfly: Thank you, that’s the one that I was thinking of. You got it even though my memory was wrong, Greenday isn’t using exactly the same rhythm.

  42. 42.

    Tree With Water

    @Pogonip: “Whoever said they wanted to save day-after-Thanksgiving shopping seems to have called it correctly”.

    That’s so cynical I’m surprised it hadn’t occurred to me.

  44. 44.

    Roger Moore

    Everything by U2 sounds like everything else by U2. It would make me wonder why anyone bothers buying their new albums, except that Apple couldn’t even give their new one away successfully.

    Also, too, Peter Schickele’s pairing of “You Are My Sunshine” and “The 1812 Overture” was a work of purest genius.

  46. 46.

    Pogonip

    @Tree With Water: It’s so sensible I’m annoyed it didn’t occur to ME!

    During the Bruce Springsteen poutrage, I went around singing “rock and roll welfare queen” to the tune of “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo.”

  47. 47.

    Joel

    Take the Skinheads Bowling and Brimful of Asha.

    Same chords. I’m sure there are tons of songs with that chord progression.

  49. 49.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    Counting Stars by One Republic and Butterfly by smile.dk (from Dance Dance Revolution) are the exact same song.

  50. 50.

    Jewish Steel

    On Yes! We Have No Bananas:

    The song was the subject of a column by Sigmund Spaeth, who suggested that the melody could have been derived from a combination of parts of other songs including the Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah by Handel, “My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean”, “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls”, “Aunt Dinah’s Quilting party” and Cole Porter’s “An Old-Fashioned Garden”.

    Substituting the original lyrics from those to the appropriate melodic phrases you get:

    Hallelujah, Bananas! Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me
    I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls—the kind that you seldom see
    I was seeing Nellie home, to an old-fashioned garden: but,
    Hallelujah, Bananas! Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @M31:

    That was one of my specialties back when I could whistle and hum duets with myself (it’s been difficult to produce the best sound ever since I had a lot of dental work done back in 2001-02).

  66. 66.

    divF

    circa 1978: Little Roger and the Goosebumps,
    Lyrics: Theme from “Gilligan’s Island”;
    Melody: “Stairway to Heaven”.
    Zeppelin sued, needless to say, and the recording was pulled from the market. But everything survives on YouTube.

  70. 70.

    Ron Thompson

    For their second single, the Beach Boys just took Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” and sang “Surfin’ U.S.A.” with no song-writing credit to Berry. It was the exact same tune, and even the lyrics were similar, mentioning a succession of cities.

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