History Main / ToTheTuneOF

* "Twinkle twinkle, little star..." / "A B C D E F G..." / "Baa, baa black sheep..." And they're all based on the French song "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" -- which itself inspired a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:12_Variations_Tema.ogg 13-part]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Variation_I.ogg Mozart piece]]. (There should be 11 more links, but Wikipedia don't have 'em. Oh, well!)

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* EVERY song from ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'', up to and including the theme song, is to the tune of some other traditional kids' song.

** Germans know this one as "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann" ("Tomorrow comes Santa" -- a Christmas song!)

See also TheJimmyHartVersion. SampledUp is when this version completely eclipses the original. {{Filk Song}}s are very frequently set to the tune of existing songs.

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* "The Mexican Hat Dance" and [[{{Animaniacs}} "Yakko's World."]]

* "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" and [[{{Animaniacs}} "The Planet Song."]]

* Baracuda did this with using the tune from ''Amaranth'' by Nightwish, and the lyrics to "Where Is the Love?" by AliceCooper. This can be seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drUMucmSb_4 here]].

* "(There was an Old Man named) Michael Finnegan", "Ten Little Indians", and "Paw Pay Patch."

One of the OldestOnesInTheBook, as many, ''many'' traditional songs and national anthems do this. This can produce a [[LyricalDissonance very dissonant effect]] if the two songs have completely different moods. It's also common in hymnody; most traditional hymnals include the meter signature for each text so it can be easily matched to other tunes; e.g., Common Meter (8.6.8.6 -- used by AmazingFreakingGrace and many others).

* Entire genres of theatre work under this principle. For instance, "ballad operas" -- the most famous probably being John Gay's ''Theatre/TheBeggarsOpera'' -- took popular tunes and rewrote their lyrics to tell a story. (Note, though, that Weill and Brecht's adaptation of ''The Beggar's Opera'', ''TheThreepennyOpera'', had original music, except for the "Morning Anthem", which reused one of the 18th-century tunes.) The genres of "burlesque", "extravaganza" and a few others were the same. Most of these genres are completely or near-completely dead, except for British {{pantomime}}s (a sort of very silly Christmas show, with crossdressing and audience participation), which appear every year in Britain.

** The traditional Gaelic hymn tune "Bunessan" has been used for the Christmas carol "Child in a Manger" and for the hymn "Morning Has Broken".

** Overall it's a common practice for even new lyricists to repurpose existing familiar tunes for new hymns. The English tune "Kingsfold" is particularly common in this regard.

** The tune "Winchester Old"; best known as the UK tune for "While Shepherds Watched", but also the tune of several other hymns (and ''nearly'' the same as "There Is A Green Hill Far Away").

* "Turkey in the Straw" (verse), and "Do Your Ears Hang Low". Also the Doughnut Shop song. And the {{Animaniacs}} state capitals song. One of the earliest incarnations of this tune was the minstrel song "Zip Coon."

* Entire genres of theatre work under this principle. For instance, "ballad operas" -- the most famous probably being John Gay's ''TheBeggarsOpera'' -- took popular tunes and rewrote their lyrics to tell a story. (Note, though, that Weill and Brecht's adaptation of ''The Beggar's Opera'', ''TheThreepennyOpera'', had original music, except for the "Morning Anthem", which reused one of the 18th-century tunes.) The genres of "burlesque", "extravaganza" and a few others were the same. Most of these genres are completely or near-completely dead, except for British {{pantomime}}s (a sort of very silly Christmas show, with crossdressing and audience participation), which appear every year in Britain.

* EVERY song from ''BarneyAndFriends'', up to and including the theme song, is to the tune of some other traditional kids' song.

MontyPython's "The Lumberjack Song" and the older ''Goon Show'' song "Ying Tong Song" both use very similar arrangements of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbsXLDNPvNc Eddie Morton's "I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew"]]. (You might recognize it from ''{{Homestuck}}''.)

** TheWho's "I Can't Explain" has a similar feel and guitar tone to TheKinks' "You Really Got Me". Both were produced by Shel Talmy, and Townshend himself admitted "Explain" was written as a Kinks ripoff.

* Metallica's "The Unforgiven II" sounds almost exactly like "Children of the Damned" by IronMaiden (which itself resembles "Simple Man by LynyrdSkynyrd)

*** The Christmas carol is an alteration of the original German folk song, which contrasts the faithfulness of the fir tree with the faithlessness of women [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/GodSaveTheKing]].

** Bunches of national and state anthems fit this trope. The American national anthem, for example, is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner a poem by Francis Scott Key]] set to the tune of the [[UnfortunateImplications English drinking song]] "[[http://www.astrococktail.com/anacreon.html To Anacreon in Heaven]]."
*** The modern version doesn't sound much like a drinking song because John Philips Sousa altered the tempo to make it sound more dignified. Modern people familiar with the Sousa arrangement might be quite surprised by earlier, jauntier versions.
** OlderThanTheyThink: the initial version of the theme was written by Jean-Baptiste Lully for the King of France Louis XIV, then plagiarised by Händel, who sold it to the British crown.
*** Allegedly...

** The first Korean national anthem was originally a traditional Korean poem sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.

->''The Red Flag, nice tune, shame about the words."

* The TropeNamer is "God Save the King/God Save the Queen," sung in America as "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" and in ImperialGermany as "Heil dir im Siegerskranz."

*** The temporary Soviet anthem and worldwide Communist song "The Internationale" was originally sung to "The Marseillaise".

One of the OldestOnesInTheBook, as many, ''many'' traditional songs and national anthems do this. This can produce a [[LyricalDissonance very dissonant effect]] if the two songs have completely different moods. It's also common in hymnody; most traditional hymnals include the meter signature for each text so it can be easily matched to other tunes; e.g. Common Meter (8.6.8.6 -- used by AmazingFreakingGrace and many others).

MontyPython's The Lumberjack Song and the older Goon Show song Ying Tong Song both use very similar arrangements of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbsXLDNPvNc Eddie Morton's "I'm A Member of the Midnight Crew]]. (You might recognize it from {{Homestuck}}.)

* In the 1988 comedy ''Moon over Parador'', the new President changes the national anthem to "Parador, te amo" ("I love you, Parador"), which goes to the tune of "Bésame Mucho". Sammy Davis, Jr. sings it.

* ''{{Community}}'' episode [[Recap/CommunityS1E12ComparativeReligion Comparative Religion]] ends with the group performing an inclusive, secularized rewrite of "Silent Night". (''Sensible night, appropriate night / Snow on ground, left and right...'')

* The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbqQLsPCAhQ Perth Wildcats' anthem]] is to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus.

* Entire genres of theatre work under this principle. For instance "Ballad operas" -- the most famous probably being John Gay's ''TheBeggarsOpera'' -- took popular tunes and rewrote their lyrics to tell a story. (Note, though, that Weill and Brecht's adaptation of the ''The Beggar's Opera'', ''TheThreepennyOpera'', had original music, except for the "Morning Anthem," which reused one of the 18th-century tunes.) The genres of "burlesque", "extravaganza", and a few others were the same. Most of these genres are completely or near-completely dead, except for British {{pantomime}}s (a sort of very silly Christmas show, with crossdressing and audience participation), which appear every year in Britain.
* Also, if composers borrowing their own work counts, almost all of Händel's operas, cantatas, and oratorios borrowed music from himself or even adapted from other composers, in varying amounts.

** Which in turn is based on one of Mozart' operatic arias.

* One of the cases on HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw consisted of him prosecuting for a Japanese band called Shoyu Weenie, who were accusing the Neptunes (yes, from ''{{Jabberjaw}}'') of stealing their hit.
* ''TheSimpsons'' -- "O Whacking Day" is strong LyricalDissonance for Americans and Germans familiar with the yuletide hymn "O Christmas Tree," less so for Britons who know the bloodthirsty lyrics of the revolutionary hymn of the same tune.
*** The Christmas carol is an alteration of the original German folk-song, which contrasts the faithfulness of the fir-tree with the faithlessness of women [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/GodSaveTheKing]]

* {{Nirvana}} were accused of copying the bass riff from "Eighties" by Killing Joke for their song "Come As You Are".

-->"It was such a clichéd riff. It was so close to a Boston riff or 'Louie Louie'."
* "Alouette" = "Down By The Station"
* The hymn ''I Vow To Thee My Country'' takes its tune from Jupiter in Holst's ''Planets'' suite.

* The University of Texas' school song, "The Eyes of Texas," is set to "I've Been Working on the Railroad."
* The AlmaMaterSong of Yale is a taken from German patriotic hymn "The Watch on the Rhine", best known in America for it's appearance in the "Marseillaise" scene in ''{{Casablanca}}''

** "O Christmas Tree" was originally in German, as "O Tannenbaum," which means pretty much the same thing -- okay, literally, it's "O fir-tree," but what, you were expecting maybe a Christmas maple?

** As does TheDoors' "Hello, I Love You" to "All Day And All Of The Night."

* Mägo de Oz, a Spanish PowerMetal[=/=]FolkMetal band, is very prone to this. As an example, they have a song, "En Nombre De Dios", which is basically "The Gates Of Babylon" by Rainbow + new lyrics about the CorruptChurch.

* The famous "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen was based on what the composer originally thought to be a folk melody, but turned out to be a composition of a contemporary Spanish musician Sebastian Iradier called "El Arreglito". Bizet acknowledged this in the score. Of course, Bizet's version is a vast improvement.

* The well-known "Oh, Where, Oh, Where has my Little Dog Gone?" was originally a comedy song called "[[http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/usa/deitcher.htm Der Deitcher's Dog]]" [''sic''] about how the eponymous German's dog [[ShootTheShaggyDog has been made into sausages]] -- itself stolen from a Swabian folk song, ''[[http://ingeb.org/Lieder/zulauter.html Zu Lauterbach hab i mei Strumpf verlorn]]''.

* "The Arkansas Traveler", "Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee", and "Peanut Butter Sandwich".
* "Turkey In The Straw" (verse), and "Do Your Ears Hang Low". Also the Doughnut Shop song. And the {{Animaniacs}} state capitals song. One of the earliest incarnations of this tune was the minstrel song "Zip Coon."

* "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Sweetly Sings The Donkey", and "Ten Green Bottles".
* Johnny Comes Marching Home, The Ants Came Marching, and Ghost Riders in the Sky.
** Based off of the Irish ballad Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye

* Patsy Gallant gave us "From L.A. to New York," to the tune of Québecois folk song "Mon pays." The English lyrics (written by Gene Williams) are nothing at all like the French lyrics, and the original author (Gilles Vigneault) has disowned the English version. (to be fair, Mlle. Gallant also recorded the French version in the same disco style)

** "What Child Is This," a Christmas song, was written with the melody from Greensleeves, an English folk song.
** Likewise, the hymn "Lord Of The Dance" copied "Simple Gifts", a Quaker song.

* "I Saw Three Ships" and "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush".

* When Billy Joel wrote "Uptown Girl" he in part (accidentally) plagiarised a Mozart piece.
* Baracuda did this with using the tune from Amaranth by Nightwish, and the lyrics to Where Is The Love? by Alice Cooper. This can be seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drUMucmSb_4 here]].
* The Catholic Liturgy does this to itself. "The Mystery of Faith" and "The Great Amen" are generally sung to the same tune (assuming, of course, that they are sung).