Same tunes

Subject: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 05:14 PM

Just to post different songs with the same tune. I will start with

The carnival is over

and

Stenka Razin

I enjoyed both :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 05:36 PM

The fact it is the same tune is unsurprising. Per 'Wiki' on "The carnival is over":
The main tune is taken from a Russian folk song about Stenka Razin known as "Iz-za ostrova na strezhen" or "Volga, Volga mat' rodnaya". The song became popular in Russia as early as 1890s.[4] It was performed by the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra (balalaikas and domras) during their 1967 tour of Australia. The tune is also used in a Dutch hymn "Vol Verwachting Blijf Ik Uitzien", and a Dutch nursery rhyme "Aan de Oever van de Rotte".

Tom Springfield adapted the melody from the Russian folk song, and also wrote the remaining music used in the song, as well as writing the lyrics, after a trip to Brazil, where he witnessed the Carnival in Rio.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: treewind
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 05:50 PM

Nor is it unusual to use the tune of a known song to go with newly-written words. The broadside ballad printers did it all the time, and so have many others.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 06:53 PM

"Stenka Razin" was also used as the basis for GS MacLennan's tune "The Kilworth Hills" - he heard it sung by Russian sailors in Leith in 1899 (when he was still in his teens) and extended it into a four-part 3/4 pipe march.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: PHJim
Date: 10 Jul 14 - 11:51 PM

I Am Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes
Wild Side Of Life
It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels
The Great Speckled Bird

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 01:03 AM

"Stenka Razin" is also the melody for Pete Seeger's River of my People.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Bert
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 02:17 AM

And just how many times has "Villikins and his Dinah" cropped up?

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 02:47 AM

...and Lilliburlero,

I was rather hoping that we would get more examples rather than a discussion on why it happens but I suppose I should have known better with Mudcat. Why just post when you can argue? :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: doc.tom
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:36 AM

Dives & Lazarus; John Barleycorn; Maria Marten; Brigg Fair; Rolling Down to Old Maui; etc;etc;etc. someone once told me the original was a 13th Century Italian tune.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Mo the caller
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:53 AM

Dives and Lazarus is Star of the County Down, though the other tunes are related when you think about it.

Carolan's Beauty in tears has the same A part as the Ash Grove.

And there are lots of tunes that start out enough like Winster Gallop, and Michael Turner's Waltz to fool some session players.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:53 AM

Can anyone provide examples similar to the ones I listed in the opening post please?

DtG

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Mo the caller
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 05:19 AM

All the sets of words to the tune Lilliburlero.

Various words to the tune Jamaica. Jolly broomman

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,c.g.
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 08:07 AM

Amd Michael Turner's waltz is the same tune as Mozart's Trio No. 2 KV 536

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Susan of DT
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 08:44 AM

Lists pasted in without clickies:
For Star of the county Down
THE LAND WHERE THE SHAMROCKS GROW
1.0000 - DOWN BY THE CLAREN'S MOSSY BANKS [THE FIELDS OF ATHENRY]
1.0000 - I HEARD THE VOICE OF JESUS SAY
1.0000 - LAZARUS
1.0000 - TRISTAN AND ISOLDA
1.0000 - THREADS WIDELY EXPANDED
1.0000 - STAR OF THE COUNTY DOWN
1.0000 - MURDER OF MARIA MARTIN
1.0000 - MARY FROM DUNGLOE
1.0000 - DIVERS AND LAZARUS
1.0000 - CROOKED JACK

For Tramps and Hawkers
0 - CANADIAN TRAVELER
1.0000 - TRAMPS AND HAWKERS
1.0000 - THE YOUNG MAN FROM CANADA
1.0000 - THE LOSS OF THE ALBION
1.0000 - TALL MEN RIDING
1.0000 - SANTA CLAUS IN THE BUSH
1.0000 - PADDY WEST
1.0000 - JAUNTING CAR
1.0000 - DURHAM LOCKOUT
1.0000 - DRIVING SAW LOGS ON THE PLOVER
1.0000 - DAVY FAA
1.0000 - CAPTAIN WEDDERBURN'S COURTSHIP
1.0000 - BRITAIN'S MOTORWAYS
I searched for the tunefile and put asterisks before and after the name. You can look for more

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 11:01 AM

Some of these tunes are musically related but not really identical.

The difference is that the average listener to "related" tunes is unlikely to think they're "the same."

In the heyday of learning songs from broadsides, people could attach the lyrics to any tune that suited them. Some tunes, of course, became dominant, especially if a ballad seller-singer was using it. But it was often a matter of individual taste.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 11:42 AM

Dick Gaughan used the same basic melody for Thatchers o Glenrae and Erin Go Bragh.
Chuck Berry's Promised Land is very similar to the tune The Carter Family used for The Wabash Cannonball.
Woody Guthrie fit a lot of existing tunes to his lyrics like
Little Darling Pal of Mine / This Land is Your Land.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: PHJim
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 11:47 AM

The fiddle tune "Red Haired Boy" is often done as a song.
"The Little Beggarman" has words, as does the Newfoundland song "My Old Ragadoo" and a song I heard in the Ottawa Valley called "The Old Soldier With The Wooden Leg". These all use the tune of "Red Haired Boy".

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: PHJim
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 11:49 AM

"Aura Lee" and "Love Me Tender"

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 11:55 AM

Gaughan's tune for "Erin go Bragh" is the one used for it in Ford's "Vagabond Songs". It's one of the "Villikins and his Dinah" family.

And it's almost identical to the tune Matt McGinn used for "The Foreman O'Rourke". I never noticed that before.

McGinn's tunes are tricky. They always seemed to be borrowed from something, but he never gives a name for them. For example "I'm Looking For A Job", from "Lord Randall's Bride". 40 years ago, it was probably more obvious to his audience what they were.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 12:09 PM

The Irish setting of Lily of the West is sung to the same tune as Lakes of Ponchartrain.

Barrack Street (Nic Jones)and Patrick Street (Patrick Street) could be added to the Tramps and Hawkers list above.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 12:11 PM

doc.tom, I'm struggling to make Old Maui go to the tune of Dives and Lazarus - maybe that's why I made such a pig's ear of Old Maui last time I tried!

Meanwhile . . . Peter Bellamy's setting of Kipling's Road to Mandalay is the tune often used for "A Capital Ship" (although that's not the one printed for that song in the Francis and Day's Community Songbooks of my youth). Is there a common ancestor to those?

SJ

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 12:14 PM

The air "Eochaill", Youghal Harbour, turns up in many different songs, most famously perhaps in P J McCall's Boulavogue.

Other songs using the same tune that I can think of are:-
Muldoon, the Solid Man
Sweet Omagh Town
The Galway Shawl
The Ould Triangle
Moreton Bay
Edward on Lough Erne's Shore

The odd thing is that I've been to some sessions where two, or even more, of the above songs have been sung without the singers or listeners even realising that the tune was being repeated!

Matthew

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,ADalton
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 12:30 PM

The Carter Family's "When the World's on Fire" also fits in with "Little Darling Pal of Mine" and "This Land is Your Land".
And then there's "The Ship That Never Returned" and "Wreck of the Old 97".

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: sleepyjon
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 12:43 PM

Sorry - fell into the cookie trap on this thread too!

That was me with the post starting "doc.tom"

SJ

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 01:04 PM

People often don't recognise quite obvious similarities. I remember Fred Woods, late editor of Folk Review, once saying to me, "Have you realised that Harry Cox's Foggy Dew goes to the tune of Ye Banks & Braes Of Bonnie Doon?"

"Of course it does," I said.

"I've only just noticed," he replied.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,ADalton
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 01:23 PM

It took me years to realize that the tune to Willie Nelson's " Can I Sleep in Your Arms Tonight Lady" is based on "Red River Valley". I only made the connection once I heard "Can I Sleep in Your Barn Tomight Mister".

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 02:18 PM

I'm not sure whether Dave was looking for sound recordings in his original post, though to my mind it is a bit much to listen to the same tune repeatedly. However I've looked in YouTube and been pleasantly surprised to find some classic recordings of the Boolavogue air there. I can't find any example of 'Youghal Harbour' other than the set dance tune of that name. I could only find a short soundclip of Gabriel McArdle singing 'Edward of Lough Erne Shore'.

Boolavogue and The Old Bog Road, played by Leo Rowsome on the uilleann pipes

Margaret Barry singing 'The Galway Shawl' and 'The Flower of Sweet Strabane (Thanks to Simon Doyle for this.)

Brendan Behan sings 'The Old Triangle from 30:57 in. He introduces the song by saying "This other song was written by a person who will never hear it recorded because he's not in possession of a gramophone; he's pretty much of a tramp."
This certainly backs the story of Dickie Shannon's authorship told by Tom Neary in this Mudcat thread Origins: The Old Triangle

Moreton Bay, performed by Martin Wyndham-Read and Iris Bishop. This video was recorded at the Conservative Club in Whitby in 2010, where the host is Ray Padgett.

Roisin White singing 'Omagh Town'

Frank Harte sings 'Muldoon, the Solid Man in a classic performance from 1999 in Boston.

Enjoy! But after listening to them all you'll probably never want to hear the tune again!

Matthew

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 03:51 PM

_A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book_, by Marcia & Jon Pankake, has an appendix listing "The Top Tunes", meaning the tunes most used by waggish Americans for parodies. They have collected 14 for "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (itself, of course, a takeoff from "John Brown's Body"). "O Tannenbaum" comes in second with only 6 (to which one must add, at least, "Maryland My Maryland" & "The Red Flag).

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:12 PM

Great thread which I will add to sporadically. For years I've kept a little notebook exactly for this purpose.

However, to make it really useful what is needed is some sort of Excel file so all of the tunes can be given in alphabetical order including variant titles and searchable so that all those related can be pulled out as a file, plus midis etc attached. (I must add that my own technical abilities are minimal.)

We can argue till the cows come home about whether 2 tunes are related or not, but for now just flagging up those that present obvious similarities would be a start, as is being done.

How about using Roud numbers to identify the songs more precisely? I could help with this.

Toorali-ooralie-addy (Adieu to all judges and juries)
Caroline and her Young Sailor Bold
Bells of North Loo (Bell-ringers song)
The Alderman's/Nobleman's Lady

'Derry Down' rivals Villikins for the most used tune, certainly if we look at 18th century ballads.
The earliest use I have is 'King John and the Bishop/Abbot' then 'A Cobbler there was' both 17thc or earlier. The most obvious usage on the folk scene was 'The Dreadnought'.

Swaggering Boney is Weel bred Cappy, The Old Yorkshire Tyke and on broadsides 'The Chapter of Kings'

The following also have similarities.
All round my Hat, The Nobleman's Wedding, Green Willow, Spencer the Rover, Spanish Ladies ( minor), Early one morning.

Shule Agra, Let the Bullgine run.

The Amphitrite, Banks of Sweet Dundee

And of course:
Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle twinkle, Little Nut tree, Incy Wincy Spider, I'm a Little Teapot, etc.   All for now.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:17 PM

We have had quite long threads on songs to the tunes of Villikins and his Dinah and John Brown's Body (one of which I seem to remember I OPd a while back): surely the two tunes which carry the greatest number of different sets of words.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:35 PM

Another widely used is G F Root's 'The Prisoner's Hope or Tramp, Tramp, Tramp' from the 1860s. Harry Clifton borrowed it for 'Work, Boys, Work and be contented' and it was used by political supporters endlessly for 'Vote, Vote, vote for ..........' then on the football terraces for 'We're all part of .........'s army, we're all off to
Wemberley, WWI March, March, March, the boys are marching, etc...

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:48 PM

Listening to "Villikins..." it sounds the same tune used in "Sweet Betsy From Pike".

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 04:59 PM

For songs that use the tune "House of David Blues", see the Musical Traditions article of the same name.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 05:30 PM

The John Brown's Body tune in Felcsik, Transylvania, with Hungarian words:

Golya, golya
quieter version from Csikszentdomokos, with dance demo

They think it's one of theirs. They may be right.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 05:44 PM

Thanks Jack - Yes, they sound the same to me. Well, similar enough anyway!

And thanks Matthew - Yes, same there. Apart from the last one, which I thought was a bit different but that was probably just me getting to the end of my tolerance :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 05:46 PM

I have refreshed the threads on the Villikins & John Brown tunes. Just look how many different songs were found to each!

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 05:49 PM

You missed Mike Hardings "Strangeways Hotel" I think :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 05:55 PM

Just remembered

Cushy Butterfield

and

Pretty Polly Perkins

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 05:57 PM

There are loads:-

Groovy Kind of Love?

Some years ago I came up with this "Weary Old Folk Tune":-



Weary Old Folk Tune

I am a weary old folk tune, it's ofttimes you've heard me
played,
Like when orders came one afternoon that we were to march
away,
From Bantry Bay down to Derry Quay from Galway to Dublin
Town,
To the Lowlands of Holland I've well and truly done the rounds.

Like when I told of three gallant poachers one March evening a
plan they made,
With trap and snare and with finger in their ear, by the
gamekeepers were waylaid,
For the singing of folk songs out of season straightway they
were condemned
To fourteen years transportay-she-aye-on unto Van Diemen's
Land.

Well as the ship it sped, we shook-ed our eds , and gay-zed
with a feeling rare,
Upon a ship that go-ed in the other direction saying "who are
that rabble over there?"
I said, says I "That's the Lancashire Lads, saying whatever shall
we do?"
Then before you could say "To me wack fol diddle eye day"
they'd nicked the bloody tune.

By now I totally confus-ed was to whom I did belong,
This melody to let, no lyrics yet, who'd be an old folk song,
An identity crisis for seven long years and only after intensive
counselling they set me free.
Only to be 'ad by Martin Carthy, three times on one CD.

Well I've been 'ad by half the regiment, given pleasure all
around the fleet.
Abus-ed by all and sundry-aye-ay from me nut brown hair to
me snow white feet.
I've been ad by the aristocracy, and by the rank and file.
It's time I was laid in the unquiet grave, like Lazarus to rise
again.


The explanation of course is that the broadsheet hawkers only sold words - you just put them to a tune you knew , hence thousands of folk songs with only a handful of tunes?

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 06:09 PM

Nice one Acorn - Not heard that before

Elvis himself did a couple :-)

Muss I Denn

and

Plaisir d'amour


Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 11 Jul 14 - 11:02 PM

Banks of the Bann shares a tune with a couple of hymns, Lord of All Hopefulness and Be Thou My Vision. One of my favorite melodies.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 12:17 AM

Can't see much resemblance between Plaisir d'Amour & Muss i Denn. both previously well-establshed songs before ol' Kingie got on to them.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 12:18 AM

Lord Of All Hopefulness, mentioned above, also set to tune of With My Love On The Road.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Bert
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 12:38 AM

The Lincolnshire Poacher, The Thing, and The Chandler's Wife.

Liverpool Barrow Boy, The Rakes of Mallow.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 12:56 AM

One needs to distinguish, I think, between the songs which traditionally share a tune [eg Dives & Laz/Star Of Cty Down], and new, often comic songs, set to familiar, "everyone-knows", tunes, as with above-mentioned The Thing to Lincs Poacher. The Thing's format, of course, derives from The Farm Servant ["And there was I with me 'knock·knock·knock', So a-courting we fell straight way"], but not melodically.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: PHJim
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 01:22 AM

Steve Gardham mentioned the Twinkle Twinkle family, which also contains the tune we often used to memorise the alphabet.

There's also Lord Of The Dance and Simple Gifts.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Monique
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 03:14 AM

Muss i denn and My Pigeon House

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Acorn4
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 03:15 AM

"Good to See You" by Allan Taylor and "Roseville Fair" are remarkably similar.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 03:19 AM

Sydney Carter consciously adopted the "Simple Gifts" tune for "Lord of the Dance", as he heard it via Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring".

One I don't quite understand: "The Mist Covered Mountains" ("Chi mi na mor-bheanna"). In the original Gaelic publication of the song (I've seen it in a book from about 1880), the tune was not printed with it, but named as "Johnny's too long at the fair" (aka "Oh dear what can the matter be"). But within about 20 years the tune had mutated; the song was printed in the Mod songbooks with the modern tune, which is obviously derived from "Johnny's too long at the fair" but couldn't be confused with it. So, how did that happen? Who created the adaptation?

(We have had innumerable discussions about how that tune is the same as the one for Jim Maclean's "Hush, hush" - please, not again).

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 03:40 AM

Can't see much resemblance between Plaisir d'Amour & Muss i Denn. both previously well-establshed songs before ol' Kingie got on to them.

No, Michael, sorry if I confused you. There is no resemblance between those two but the tunes were used for "I can't help falling in love" and "Wooden heart" respectively. I thought that seeing as other people had started quoting just the one title I may get away with it too. I was obviously wrong! Sorry.

DtG