Songs that sound like other songs

[Shaky]

Once you realise that the Twin Peaks theme is essentially The Locomotion, there's no going back.

[Steven]

Once you realise that the Twin Peaks theme is essentially The Locomotion, there's no going back.

Sorta get that but it's just the major to the relative minor, you could apply that to a million things.. seen it referenced online already too. Can't find any reference to my observation on Harry Nilsson's Without You being a main influence, or at least a massive coincidence, though, I am ace.

[Shaky]

Sorta get that but it's just the major to the relative minor, you could apply that to a million things.. seen it referenced online already too. Can't find any reference to my observation on Harry Nilsson's Without You being a main influence, or at least a massive coincidence, though, I am ace.

It actually only dawned on me quite recently but yep, a bit of quick searching revealed there already a fair few mash-ups of the two.

I honestly can't hear Falling anymore without briefly muttering, "Everybody's doin' a brand new dance now..." over the top of it, though. That's my horrible reality from now on.

[samadriel]

the vocal line of Elvis Costello's anti-Thatcher rant "Tramp the Dirt Down" is the same tune as Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?". Musical sarcasm.

Speaking of Elvis Costello, the chorus of 'I Don't Like Mondays' sounds like the chorus of 'Oliver's Army'.

[Natnar]

A track from Bryan Adam's new album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isP8pNby39A

Eurythmics - Belinda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZN-f9R0b98

[Ambient Sheep]

Someone posted in a similar thread years ago that Orbital's 'Style' sounds a lot like a whiny electronic version of 'Your Silent Face' by New Order.

That would be me, and I have indeed mentioned it once or twice over the years. :-P

I'm glad my constant harping on about it finally got noticed by someone!


One day I may even work out what the hell that fucking Coldplay song is ripped off of.

[Steven]

One day I may even work out what the hell that fucking Coldplay song is ripped off of.

A bunch of stuff occurs to me, but most bizarrely, this.

[Steven]

Fill Your Heart by Bavid Dowie sounds a bit like the later..

Goodbye (Nothing To Say) by The Javells, which is ripped off by..

Right Back Where We Started From by Maxine Nightingale, which is actually a much better song..

Which is what I reckon what Lennon had in his brain when doing the demo for Stepping Out.

[Steven]

Billy Roberts' Hey Joe has spawned a thousand similar tunes, this one as just a random example, as well as inspiring Jimi Hendrix's definitive cover version which he slowed from the more freakout version popular at the time like Love's and actually Jimi was drawing directly off the more subdued Tim Rose version, but what a lot of people don't  know is Billy Roberts used to go out with a girl called Niela Miller who years before he wrote Hey Joe had cut a single called Baby, Please Don't Go to Town, though to be fair she probably cobbled it together from a few different folk songs à la Mode.

[Custard]

Surely the Twin Peaks theme is nicked from Take My Breath Away from that Tom Cruise film?

Or the other way around. One or the other

[Steven]

Surely the Twin Peaks theme is nicked from Take My Breath Away from that Tom Cruise film?

Or the other way around. One or the other

The Berlin song came first, but yes I'd always get the two mixed up, it's the combination of that bass synth sound and the swelling synth strings that's used in both.

[Jockice]

There's a Housemartins b-side called Step Outside which has almost exactly the same tune as Extreme's More Than Words. Which came later. If I was Heaton or Cullimore I'd sue their arses off.

[phantom_power]

the vocal line of Elvis Costello's anti-Thatcher rant "Tramp the Dirt Down" is the same tune as Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?". Musical sarcasm.

Is that deliberate? If so that is fucking brilliant

[phantom_power]

Surely the Twin Peaks theme is nicked from Take My Breath Away from that Tom Cruise film?

Or the other way around. One or the other

I think Warszawa by Bowie came first

[Here Comes Mongo]

Not strictly adhering to the theme of the thread as the latter two aren't songs, but anyhow, I've noticed that Born Free sounds quite a bit like the theme from Lawrence of Arabia, which in turn sounds like certain sections of Bruckner's 6th symphony.

[greenman]

Perhaps the most blatant is sommat like Jimmy Page's White Summer, which is just Davy Graham's arrangement of She Moved Through The Fair almost note for note, and also merges into Black Mountainside, nicked off of Jansch's Blackwaterside, amongst tons of other shite he's blatantly stolen and just changed the name.

That first album is by far the worst offender, after that I think most of the litfting tends to be more minor elements or significantly reworked blues/RnB.

[Better Midlands]

And another one:

33 1/3 Queen - Searchin' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chHtoWsoZ0I

A Guy Called Gerald - Blow Your House Down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3XVE8dPvzM

The 33 1/3 Queen tune has been one of my all-time favourites since it came out, shamefully I only found out last year it's a straight rip-off of the Gerald tune. Common behaviour in the shady world of early house. I still prefer it to the Gerald original though.

Yeah, big fan of 33 1/3 Queen (& NU Groove) and I didn't find out till about 10 years ago

In a similar spirit of late 80s ravin'

KLF - What Time Is Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT7lwdui4HY
Jesus Christ Superstar OST - Heaven On Their Minds

[Nobody Soup]

this is a dumb niche one, I mean, it fits the thread but who really cares

marilyn manson's lamb of god - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTI8cApuoZw

sounds like radiohead's climbing up the walls - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbtZyuOMdHI

[idunnosomename]

I like this one because it's a triple

The main riff of Kyuss's "Big Bikes" (1991) is practically exactly the same as the main riff of Metallica's "Bad Seed" (1997) (basically a one-chord rhythm with a tail)

The main riff of Audioslave's "Cochise" (2002) is practically the same as the intro riff of Bad Seed (simple descending pentatonic)

[Carpool Dragon]

My Chemical Romance - The End is Five Years. I don't know how they got away with that shit.

[gmoney]

The 3 second bit in the chorus of Gilbert O Sullivan's Get Down - https://youtu.be/SJ4GyS0WNA0?t=21 sounds like So it Goes by Nick Lowe - https://youtu.be/k3jiCi7aFZE?t=33.

Or at least it did when I thought about it when I saw the topic title. I might have talked myself out of it.

[zomgmouse]

Plenty of Led Zeppelin in this thread but I've always thought a lot of Stairway to Heaven (e.g. here) sounds like CCR's Ramble Tamble.

[Steven]

This is one I realised years ago but only just remembered, interesting lineage to this bassline..

Ricky Nelson - Summertime

The Blues Magoos - We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet

The Liverpool Five - She's Mine

Deep Purple - Black Night

[Steven]

I have a bit of an autism with music and tend to always relate the melodies of songs to other songs, usually I can pick up what it's reminded me of in a minute or two, but this song I heard months ago and immediately thought it reminded me of something.. but I can't pin down what the melody is reminding me of, any guesses?

Music Go Music - Warm In The Shadows

The actual general 'sound' of the song I could pin down immediately and it's

Spoiler alert

Blondie - Rapture

[close]

, it's the actual melody that I'm finding evasive.

[Steven]

I've noticed something about a certain period in the mid to late 60s of a lot of songs 'toying' with a similar progression which had obviously sank into the public unconsciousness. Graham Gouldman's For Your Love which was put out as a single by The Yardbirds.. and actually the best cover I've heard of it was in 1965 by a Spanish band called Los Huracanes with badly translated lyrics and everything but kicks 'a Spanish bum'. But it sounds a very similar progression to the later song Serge Gainsbourg's Bonnie and Clyde or Callum Bryce's Love Maker and a raft of other 60s singles I can't be bothered listing at the moment.

Thing is I think what they were all drawing off was the massive influence of the folk song House Of The Rising Sun, which of course was a massive hit for The Animals which came out in 1964 fitting in with all this chronology. This progression actually stems from a version arranged by Dave Van Ronk in the 50s who was probably working off other versions such as by Josh White who was one of the first recorded to play it in a minor key, when the original was a very traditional boring major key melody such as the one performed by Tom Ashley in the 1930s.

Van Ronk actually taught his arrangement of House Of The Rising Sun to Bob Dylan when he was living with him in New York and Dylan went and recorded it on his debut album even though Van Ronk had expressly asked him not to as he was saving it for his next record. This is most definitely the version The Animals would have heard and worked out their own version, Van Ronk sort of got his own back though when Dylan came over to tour the UK after the success of The Animals he'd get criticised for playing The Animals' song at concerts!

[An Actual Propeller]

In a similar spirit of late 80s ravin'

KLF - What Time Is Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT7lwdui4HY
Jesus Christ Superstar OST - Heaven On Their Minds

Also 'What Time Is Love' and Anne Clark's 'Our Darkness'.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

XTC's Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go!) off of their second album reminds me of House of Fun quite a bit. Mainly the rhythms.

[Crabwalk]

XTC's Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go!) off of their second album reminds me of House of Fun quite a bit. Mainly the rhythms.

There's 'King for a Day' and 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' too, of course...

[non capisco]

If 'Falling' from Twin Peaks reminds me of anything it's that song that goes 'Every sha-la-la-la-la, every woh-ooh-woh-oh' by I'm going to guess The Carpenters. I rewatched the lot about a year ago and that was what I ended up singing along to it. I do love that theme though. It gives some kind of romantic grandeur to the start of even the worst episodes, like with James Hurley shacking up with an older woman and Dick Tremayne and Little fucking Nicky.

I ended up liking a lot of The White Stripes stuff but the first song I ever heard of theirs that everyone was going nuts over was 'Hotel Yorba' and that is so undeniably just 'My Old Man's A Dustman'. That's the hot new sound of 2001, is it?

[Ray Travez]

Is that deliberate? If so that is fucking brilliant

I think it has to be, doesn't it?

I love this one- High Wire vs the truly excrable 'One Night in Heaven'