The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151983 Message #3552455
Posted By: Little Hawk
24-Aug-13 - 03:37 PM
Thread Name: Stolen Melodies - USA
Subject: Stolen Melodies - USA
Are you upset about Bob Dylan using various traditional melodies for some of his songs? If so, consider this: He is an American, and the United States of America has a long tradition for appropriating well known melodies and using them in its own official and sacred anthems!
For example, "The Star-Spangled Banner"....
"The poem by Francis Scott Keys was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a men's social club in London. "The Anacreontic Song" (or "To Anacreon in Heaven"), with various lyrics, was already popular in the United States. Set to Key's poem and renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner", it would soon become a well-known American patriotic song.
And "My Country 'Tis of Thee"....
"whose melody is identical to "God Save the Queen", the British national anthem,[2] also served as a de facto anthem."
Theft, people! Outright, blatant, and unashamed artistic theft from fine British traditions, and theft by an entire nation!!!
Shocking! Unconscionable! For shame! ;-D
Well...maybe Bob was just doing what any patriotic American would by building upon existing traditions. Let's give him and the USA the benefit of the doubt on this, I say.
Then there's Woody Guthrie, who stole so many previously existing melodies that to list them all would be a truly daunting task...but...let's not even get into that.