Hey, That Song Sounds Like...

Subject: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 10:45 AM

Other people hear differences - I hear similarities. I may be completely wrong about this, but...

WUNH played Buffalo Shoals by Wayne (here's an MP3 of the song) on the bluegrass show a little while ago, and while I was listening, I kept thinking "I know that song. It was wearing different words and a different title, and it wasn't bluegrass, but..." So I racked my brain, cued up and clued in. I don't know if It was one of those things where a person hears a song and years later they write something and the old memory of a song pushes through in the new, and the writer is completely unaware. I don't know whether it was intentional use of the other song. I don't know whether it's just me, thinking I notice things that other people think are totally whacked.

My questions are:
1) Does this stuff ever happen to other people?
2) For those who listen to the MP3 sample, does this song remind you of another song? (funny-- when I found a sample of the other song, it was in the same key.)

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 10:58 AM

I have this experience a lot Jeri.
Sometimes feel ,given the finite number of musical notes available,it would be unreasonable not to here resemblances her & there.
"Buffalo Shoals" does remind me of something but I can't think what.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 11:17 AM

The fact it's nearly impossible to not build from others' work is one reason I don't want to call it something sinister. There are enough differences, and when it comes down to it, it might just be the number of sylables in the title and the way they sound when spoken/sung or something else that just happened accidentally.

PF, what's funny is when a song nags at me for a long time, and when I figure out what it reminds me of, I wonder how the heck I managed to think the two were similar. Sometimes, I think it may just come down to the fact that you were eating carrots when you heard both songs.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 11:29 AM

well whatever it reminds anyone of
this song is sure one big steaming heap of stinking buffalo shit

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: NH Dave
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 11:35 AM

There's an old Vermont/railroading song that Margaret MacArthur sings, called the Central Vermont Tragedy. It's about an old passenger train that went off the trestle around White River Junction, Vt., and burned when the individual stoves in the passenger cars tipped over. Every time I hear it I think it reminds me of a Country Western tune, but when I asked Curmudgeon about it, he said it didn't ring any bells.

Dave

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 11:48 AM

Dave, you'll have to sing a bit of it next time I see you. I've probably heard the song, but I can't remember it.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Snuffy
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 01:13 PM

That tune certainly sounded "generic" to me, but evoked two contradictory responses at the same time: Devilgate Drive and Jollity Farm.

Bet neither of 'em is the one you were thinking of

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 01:51 PM

Snuffy, your examples both sound like they could work, and you're absolutely right: they aren't what I was thinking of.

"Down in/in bobblety boo" rhythm is certainly a big part of it. It might just be one of those snippets from the collective conscious of, perhaps, the whole human race, and comes to us down the ages, beaten out on skin drums in ancient Africa, in ancient Britian, in ancient Gaul, or perhaps Canada, and is hardwired into our being like the DNA of song.

Or not.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 02:26 PM

I learned a Pink Anderson song, Bring It On Home, and noticed that John Hartford's HEY BABE,YOU WANT TO BOOGIE could be played to the same guitar arrangement.
I played them as a medley at a local folk club and someone said,"That sounds like Robert Johnson's THEY'RE RED HOT."
I was playing it at home once and my wife said,"Hey, I haven't heard Alice's Reastaurant in years."
My friend, Washboard Hank pointed out that it works with an old western swing tune called YOU CAN'T TAME WILD WOMEN.
It also works(with a variation in the bridge) to an old tune my mom used to sing called JADA.
I now play this as a medley of all six tunes.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 02:47 PM

Have now eaten so I hope no more of the embarrassing spelling mistakes which are so obvious in my last posting.
Jeri, a more simple explanation would be that people ,unconsciously or otherwise, always immitate success.
The similarity with "Devil gate drive." may simply be the consequence
of a writer studying how another writer puts together a song in order to see how it's done.
This was common practice during the greatest period of classical composition.
Borrowed metres are commonplace in all sung music.
A good example is that the words to "Rock of ages ","Clementine" & "La Cucaracha" can all be sung to each others melodies.
This is also the case with "House of the rising sun" & "Oh little town of Bethlehem" (Try it)
Also bear in mind that all the civilisations you mention in your example were known to each other.
Where this leads is apparent in an example like "Twist & Shout"
The Beatles version was their interpretation of a song recorded by The Isley Brothers who's chord changes were adapted from La Bamba which was introduced into The U.S. from Mexico.It was introduced into Mexico by The Spanish who ,allegedly,borrowed it from The Portuguese who may have taken it from elsewhere for all I know.
Ultimately it's all about Human interaction rather than Mysticism.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Naemanson
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 05:50 PM

While there are lots of examples of 'sinister' behavior in the world of art you always have to keep in mind what Woody Guthrie once said about stealing music. We go through life with songs running through our minds. It should not come as a surprise that sometimes a new song sounds like another.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Barry Finn
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 05:58 PM

I sing a lot of different songs & now that you mention it they all sound the same, strange, ain't it.
Barry

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 06:02 PM

Brett, ain't it da trutte! I've done it. Wrote a tune, played it for someone, and was told, "It's a little too much like O'Carolan's Farewell to his Lunch." (Captain O'Kane) I used to rant about people stealing song material, but I think it's almost never intentional.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 06:05 PM

Barry, then do NOT sound the same. Well, except for the ones that go, "Whatthehell's the next line, dammit!?" EVERYBODY does that one!

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Peace
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 06:56 PM

It reminds me of a Mary Chapin Carpenter song. Danged if I can remember which one.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 11:40 PM

.. or steve earle

"copperhead road"

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Bugsy
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 11:42 PM

"Streets of London" - Ralph McTell
"Meet Me On The Corner" - Rod Hull
"Fairwell To the Gold" - Paul Metzers

All have similarities.

Cheers


Bugsy

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 27 Feb 06 - 07:58 AM

Jeri & NHDave -- yesterday we made the (sudden) connection between the dog song "Bingo Was His Name" and (listen to it) "Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl" -- these things just come to you. (Prolly at 3 in the morning.)

Linn

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 06 - 12:14 PM

There is quite a famous Cape Breton Somg called , well, I'm not sure what it is called.."we are an island , a rock in the sea, we are a people so proud and so free", etc..the tunes reminds me of a Richard Farina tune, Birmingham Sunday which in turn reminds me of something else, but I am not sure what. Anyone else hear these similarities or is it just me. The old folk process at work.

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 28 Feb 06 - 12:26 PM

The Wild Side Of Life
I Am Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes
It Wasn't God Who Made Honkeytonk Women
Great Speckled Bird
Houseboat In (To?) Heaven - the S.Clark/T.Van Zandt song

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Feb 06 - 01:51 PM

ah, yes, Jim...you have there a list of obvious connections. I'm sure someone can tell us exactly who got those tunes from whom!...but danged if I had ever noticed before " HEY BABE,YOU WANT TO BOOGIE" and "JADA"....I'll bet if we could ask John Hartford, he'd say "sure".

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Flash Company
Date: 01 Mar 06 - 09:49 AM

'Mr Bojangles' And 'Gingerbread Man' always seem to me to be out of the same pod.
And I heard one today on the BBC 'Radio Ballad' that had me muttering 'That tune is something else'.
Remembered it later as 'From Hull and Halifax and Hell'

FC

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 01 Mar 06 - 02:17 PM

I play "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes" and "words of love" together (occasionally alternating lines) using the "African" rhythm - certainly the same chords and melodic structure - but it just goes to show that both Buddy holly and Paul Simon are great songwriters.

Roger

Subject: RE: Hey, That Song Sounds Like...
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 Mar 06 - 01:55 PM

I was watching the movie version of "Hello Dolly" for umpteenth time, when I suddenly realized that the melody for the outdoor production number, "Before the Parade Passes By" was exactly the same as that of "Samba de Orfeo"--I got a chance to meet Jerry Herman this year, and he was such a nice person that I said nothing whatsoever about it--