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Rearrange the Song

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A trope growing more common every day. Need to breathe new life into old musical material, or just a way of keeping viewers tuning in? Rearrange The Song associated with the property. If "the bones" of the song (melody, lyrics and chord progression) are strong, re-arranging it is a way to make old material fresh, or to take advantage of current musical trends and fads.

There's different types of rearrangements. One way is to change the instruments, so an acoustic theme song (acoustic guitar, upright bass and piano) could be rearranged for electric guitar, electric bass and synthesizer, or for a jazz big band. Another way is to change the feel and style, such as if a Country Music theme song was re-arranged in a Rock Music feel. The new arrangement may get "sweetening": adding a chorus of backup singers and lush orchestral strings.

The staff of TV shows which have been running for many seasons have, on occasion, rearranged the theme song newly each season. A show that has a Spin-Off or a Time Skip sequel will occasionally arrange the new show's Theme Tune to hearken back to the original show. The beneficial effect of this, of course, is that they now have multiple versions of a song to appeal to multiple demographics.

An example of this occurring is in The '70s, when many TV shows' theme songs had a funky disco feel.

With musicians, they can sometimes do cover versions of their own material as a method of pushing the envelope with their own work. Musicians also do it with other people's work as parody or homage.

See Variations on a Theme Song for when the main theme of a work is changed for a single episode.

It's also common in cases where a classic property has been made into The Movie. See also Remix Album, Diegetic Soundtrack Usage, Theme Tune Extended, Truncated Theme Tune, Re-release the Song.


Examples:

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    Anime 
  • No theme has been rearranged more than the classic crooner's tune "Fly Me To The Moon" (itself a heavily rearranged version of an old waltz), which was the ending for Neon Genesis Evangelion. There's about 15 to 20 versions used for the show's ending, and that's for a 26-episode TV series. The Neon Genesis Evangelion rendition of "Fly Me To The Moon" is of itself a rearrangement. It was originally written by Bart Howard in 1954.
  • The original Japanese version of Sailor Moon got a new version of its theme song ("Moonlight Densetsu") for its third season. The new version had the actresses for the Inner Senshi in the Sera Myu musicals doing the singing instead of DALI.
  • There are currently three different versions of "New Moon ni Koi Shite", Sailor Moon Crystal's Season 3 opening theme.
  • The dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! is an interesting case. The first season theme was really just the first minute of the full theme song. The second season theme was a different piece of music from later in the same song. It bounced back after that.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • The "Johto League Champions" season of Pokémon: The Original Series did a redo of the first theme for their opening. It didn't have quite the same lyrics at first (and a different refrain), but it's clear that it was to match the Japanese version (which remixed Mezase Pokémon Master...but Rica Matsumoto didn't sing this version).
    • Pokémon the Series: XY uses a third redo of the first theme, this time a straight cover rather than something along the lines of "Born to Be a Winner". Interestingly this doesn't match up with the Japanese version, which uses an original song instead of an arrangement of "Mezase".
    • Additionally, the English versions of the first four theme songs were remixed at the beginning of the first four movies, while the fifth movie simply had an extended version of the anime's fifth theme song. The rest of the movies averted this trend, while the first Diamond and Pearl movie, Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai, inverted the trend by having a completely new song, "We Will Be Heroes". This song was later remixed into the theme for the "DP: Battle Dimension" season of Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl.
    • Several songs from the games receive remixes in the anime.
    • Mezase Pokemon Master was remixed again for the 20th-anniversary movie, while the dub used another remix of the first opening.
  • The Negima! Magister Negi Magi series are notorious for this, as with a class of 31, one song can be remixed several times. The opening themes of both anime, plus the ending theme of the second, have gone through this.
  • While not quite as numerous as other examples, Strike Witches used this as well. The girls, in different duets, took turns covering the ending theme, with the final episode having all of them singing at once.
  • Akikan!! may be a 12-Episode Anime, but it remixes the ending theme in every episode.
  • The first opening song for Sgt. Frog was remixed with the lyrics altered and new singers and was used as the sixth opening. The tenth opening uses a version of the first theme sung by the members of the platoon, though it had been in existence prior. The second and third movies also used remixed versions of the opening theme.
  • GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class has five different versions of "Coloring palettes", its ending theme. Tomokane's and Noda's are upbeat, whereas Kisaragi and Professor's versions are a little more relaxed.
  • GaoGaiGar has an entire soundtrack, Yuusha-Oh Tanjou! 10 RenHatsu!!, devoted to the various versions of its theme song, Yuusha-Oh Tanjou!. Included in this are the original, Mythology (from FINAL), Grand Glorious Gathering (from FINAL -Grand Glorious Gathering-), ultimate extra (sung by the artists who sung the theme to Betterman), Ultimate Mythology and Perfect Yell (original and Ultimate Mythology with sound clips from the series) It powerfully rearranges its own ending theme for the very end of FINAL by having it sung by the character voices themselves.
  • The second half of Welcome to the NHK uses a more downbeat version of the opening, to match the show's mood shift.
  • Last Exile's ending theme, "Over the Sky", was given a much longer and more emotional version, "Over the Sky Angel Feather ver." for the final episode.
  • Pretty Cure:
    • Fresh Pretty Cure! reworked its opening theme song (which was considered to be badly sung by some fans) at the same time that the opening itself was edited to reflect Setsuna's new alignment.
    • Ditto for the Suite Pretty Cure ♪ opening, just ignore the "badly sung" part and replace "Setsuna" with "Siren/Ellen".
    • Prior to that, Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star, Yes! Pretty Cure 5, and Yes! Pretty Cure 5GoGo all used various versions of "Ganbalance de Dance" as their second ending theme. Amusingly, Fresh, which had dancing as a major focus of the series, was the series that broke this trend.
    • Prior to all of them was Futari wa Pretty Cure Max Heart, who modified Futari wa Pretty Cure's theme "DANZEN! Futari Wa Pretty Cure" to a more action-packed theme, "DANZEN! Futari Wa Pretty Cure (ver. Max Heart)"
    • HeartCatch Pretty Cure! had their opening and ending remixed for The Movie, which hadn't been done in other versions prior or afterward.
    • The first three Pretty Cure All Stars movies had the same theme remixed with each movie, mostly to accommodate the new season (Heartcatch for the second and Suite for the third)
      • The fifth and sixth All Stars movies remixes the new theme, "Precure ~Eien no Tomodatchi~", from the fourth movie. Movie six also rearranges "Precure Memory", the end theme to HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! by having all nine Pink-type Cure seiyuu sing it.
    • Maho Girls Pretty Cure! had a re-arranged opening for the second half that was a rock version with different lyrics.
  • In the Digimon dub, compare the theme for the seasons based on Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02 and the theme for the Digimon Tamers season. Essentially the same, but the former is kind of techno and the latter uses more rock guitar instead. In the Japanese version, Digimon Adventure tri. uses the opening theme from the original series, except it has been rearranged to the point where it barely sounds like the same song. YMMV on whether it's for better or worse, though.
  • Bottle Fairy has five variations of its ending theme, each sung by a different fairy about a different season, the final one being sung by the four of them together about the fuzzy feelings felt throughout the year.
  • By this point, it's nigh-impossible to count how many versions of the Lupin III theme there are.
  • Di Gi Charat Nyo! used a remix of Equal Romace, an end theme of Ranma ½, as its ending theme.
  • The second season of Higurashi: When They Cry does this in an interesting way. It plays the tune of the first season; backwards, with enough variation to be an actual tune.
  • So far, the ending theme of Sasami-san@Ganbaranai has had a new version for each episode.
  • The One Piece anime has two openings covering the first opening theme, "We Are". The seventh opening keeps the same instrumentation but is sung by the Straw Hat pirates, while the tenth opening is a pop cover by South Korean band TVXQ.
  • Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' both had remixes of the original theme song "Cha-la Head Cha-la". Battle of Gods was sung by FLOW while Resurrection F was sung by Momoriro Clover Z.
  • The various Nasuverse shows and games from the Fate/stay night franchise often use unique variations of the most memorable and important songs, such as "This Illusion" and "EMIYA".

    Films — Animated 
  • In The Book of Life, a lot of pop hits are turned Mariachi-style or given a Mexican lilt to fit the environment of the movie.
  • Disney Animated Canon:
    • Disney movies simultaneously release the version one hears in the soundtrack, plus a version recorded by a popular recording artist arranged specifically for radio play with the intention of getting a hit single.
    • Disney occasionally produces albums of rearranged songs, including "Simply Mad About The Mouse" (which had its own TV special), "Stay Awake" (which features Tom Waits' version of marching song), an album featuring R&B and pop singers singing their favorite Disney songs, and "We Love Disney".
  • The Portuguese dub of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls features a rearranged version of the main show's theme tune for the opening credits.
  • Recess: School's Out used a more epic, beefed-up version of the regular Recess theme.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Live-Action TV 
  • A rather infamous example of this is Mork & Mindy, which rearranged its instrumental theme song during all four of its seasons. What's interesting is that each rearrangement was made for the sake of pandering to a specific demographic. The first season, most likely to suggest family appeal, used a light/gentle rendition of the show's core theme (though the first three episodes used a modified version of this theme, while several episodes in the middle used another modified version). Season 2, in an effort to appeal to a younger demographic, switched to a more upbeat disco rendition of the show's theme, with no less than four different arrangements. Season 3, in an effort to regain lost members of the first season's audience, used a single theme tune that was more similar to the first season's theme(s), albeit a little harsher. While, for Season 4, the writers used an upbeat/comedic rendition of the theme.
  • Reading Rainbow rearranged its theme song during the show's 17th season in 1999 and again in 2001.
  • The Bill has rearranged its theme music five times in its 26 years on the air. The original 1984–1987 version of the theme was arranged in the irregular time signature of 7/4, giving it almost a reggae-style beat. While this was kept in most subsequent arrangements, one in particular—the one used from 1998–2001—was arranged in the regular time signature of 4/4, making it considerably less interesting as a result, and earning the ire of Bill Bailey in the process. In 2009 however, the theme was changed completely, to a darker and edgier theme to fit with the show's retool, albeit with a small homage to the original theme. At the end of the final episode, a new rearranged version of the original theme played, although similar in tone to the 2009 theme.
  • The Cosby Show rearranged its theme music every season, except in season seven, where the season six version was still used. It was a pretty standard mid-80's sitcom theme in its first season. But in later seasons it was rearranged as a peppy dance tune (season two), salsa song (season three), a cappella performed by Bobby McFerrin (season four), a ballet (season five), a Motown-styled dance tune (seasons six and seven) and in the final season, a hip hop song crossed with a homage to the old song "Shotgun."
  • The Everybody Hates Chris theme seems to change every 10 episodes. and every time it does, the original tune becomes less and less recognizable.
  • Growing Pains always had the same theme song, but there were different versions of it. BJ Thomas was the main vocalist from 1985-1991, using a solo version for the first year before being joined by Jennifer Warnes and later, Dusty Springfield; the music itself was reworked a couple of times. During the sixth season and in the Grand Finale, an acapella version was used.
  • Doctor Who has rearranged its theme many times over its long history, since Delia Derbyshire's original arrangement, always using Ron Grainer's original 1963 compostition as the basis:
    • The first rearrangement of the original Radiophonic Workshop version of the theme came in for "The Faceless Ones" in 1967, early in Patrick Troughton's tenure as the Doctor. It was designed to keep better in time with the new version of the opening credits introduced in the previous story, and arranger Delia Derbyshire added "electronic spangles" and an echo effect. for the Patrick Troughton incarnation, and then in the '70s, she added the electronic "scream" preceding the closing titles and introduced the sound effect at the end to the televised theme for the first time (it was in the full version of the original 1963 theme).
    • There was also an attempt to completely rearrange the theme tune in the early '70s, by Paddy Kingsland of the Radiophonic Workshop, assisted by Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire (both from there as well), on the Workshop's new EMS Synthi-100 modular synthesizer (nicknamed the "Delaware"), stated by Hodgson to be done "just to see if we could do it". They did it...but it turned out quite awful. It was never used in the programme (except in copies of some Season 10 episodes accidentally sent to Australia, which still had the Delaware version instead of the Delia Derbyshire version that was dubbed back into all other copies).
    • The next successful rearrangement came in 1980 at the start of John Nathan-Turner's tenure as producer with "The Leisure Hive" This radically different "80s synth" theme was arranged by Peter Howell and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
    • Another rearrangement came in for "The Mysterious Planet" in 1986, no longer from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop but by freelance composer Dominic Glynn. This version kept the "80s synth" feel of its predecessor but had a softer, more mysterious tone. This would prove to be the shortest-lived arrangement of the Classic series, lasting only one season.
    • Keff McCullough provided yet another new arrangement starting from "Time and the Rani", which remained in use for the entire Sylvester McCoy era.
    • Series 1-3 of the new series use orchestral arrangements of the theme played over the top of the Delia Derbyshire version.
    • Series 4 rearranges some of the orchestral elements and adds guitars and drums, giving it a rock and roll theme.
    • Series 5-6 and the first part of Series 7 is more electronic uses a bassline reminiscent of the '80s versions (and is rather funky) accompanied by a new grand and haunting orchestral melody, a constant synthesized, drum machine-like rhythm, and even a chorus.
    • Series 7 Part 2 slightly modifies the timbre of the bassline and the electronic lead, has a different drum pattern, with real drums this time, and removes some of the orchestral elements from the previous theme to give it a slightly more minimalistic feel.
    • In Series 3 of the new series, "Martha's Theme" sounds almost like a reworking of "The Doctor Forever," the 10th Doctor's leitmotif from that series (or vice-versa, given their introduction around the same time).
  • CSI: NY rearranged their version of "Baba O'Riley" in Season 4.
  • The 1978 film Superman: The Movie's theme music is an inversion. The actual tune is rarely the same twice, but it is all arranged similarly, to a bright, swelling, heroic theme with a lot of brass. Three different composers, but the listener will hear the song and think "Superman". (A few creators have found that, if you were to set lyrics to the various Superman themes to the tune of the main melody, there would be a spot where "Superman" fits perfectly.)
  • Kamen Rider Den-O remixed its battle theme, "Double-Action", into several versions fueled by the unexpected popularity of the Taros', each with a different musical style. The hero's five include the original Double-Action AKA "Sword Form" (Eurobeat), "Rod Form" (ska), "Ax Form" (enka), "Gun Form" (hip-hop/rap), and "Wing Form" (Arab pop); in addition, the first movie's Big Bad gets "Gaoh Form", a solo death metal version, a bonus pop version was made, named "Coffee Form" and sung by the hero's sister and one of his allies, both coffee aficionados, and for the second movie "Climax Form" sung by the Taros and Deneb. Related are "Real-Action", a straight rock song sung solo by the hero, and "Action-ZERO", an original hard rock theme for The Lancer and his Battle Butler. The show's opening theme, "Climax Jump", has gone through a similar treatment, with a quartet version sung by the Taros as well as individual versions made for the third movie, and two new versions, "The Final" for the third movie, and "Ch? Climax Jump" from the fourth movie, which is also an ensemble song. On one of the soundtracks is a song titled "DEN-O VOCAL TRACKS LINER (C-J D-A nonstop re-connection)" which is a remix of all of the songs released up to that point into a single 8-minute track.
    • Following the example of Den-O, its successor Kamen Rider Kiva had three mixes of The Rival's theme "Individual-System" (the standard version sung by the star, and two remixes, "Fight for Justice" and "Don't Lose Yourself", sung by the rival to reflect his changing attitude over the series). About a year after the show ended, a reunion album was released, which included more remixes, such as the main character and his father swapping their respective theme tunes.
      • And its successor Kamen Rider Decade included a series of albums that rearranged all of the theme songs of the nine previous series by the official rock band RIDER CHIPS and "Climax Jump"'s composer Shuhei Naruse. This resulted in two more versions of "Climax Jump".
      • And then along comes the fifth Den-O movie, split into three separate movies, each with its own song. The first gets a ballad version of "Action-ZERO", the second a mix of Double-Action for the hero's Grandkid From The Future and his partner (rock 'n roll), and the third gets "Climax-Action ~The Den-O History~", which is said to be a combination of every version of "Climax Jump" and "Double-Action" to date.
  • K.C. Undercover's opening theme "Keep It Undercover" was mainly pop rock, but for its final season, it was remixed and given an R&B sound.
  • Perhaps taking a cue from Den-O, Engine Sentai Go-onger's ending theme comes in several cover versions as well. Each of the Humongous Mecha trios has their own mix ("Engine First Rap -Type Normal-", "Second Rap -Turbo Custom-", "Third Rap -Aero-Dynamic Custom-", "Final Rap -Type Evolution"), then there's one that's a musical Green Aesop ("Engine Eco Rap -Recycle Custom-"), one for The Movie ("Engine Formation Rap -GekijouBANG! Custom-"), a cover sung exclusively by the show's female cast ("G3 Princess Rap ~Pretty Love Limited~"), a cover sung exclusively by the show's male cast ("G5 Prince Rap ~Bombaye Limited"), and then a final version covering all 12 of the Humongous Mecha for the finale ("Engine Winning Run -Type Formula-"). The five songs for the mecha (First, Second, Third, & Final Lap, and Winning Run) were later strung into a continuous 17-minute song for a soundtrack release.
  • The themes to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Power Rangers Zeo were remixed versions of the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers theme. The season after Zeo, Power Rangers Turbo, worked in the six-note "Go, go, Power Rangers!" riff, but was otherwise unique. Years later, Saban's reclaiming of the franchise led them to resurrect the theme and use an updated version for Power Rangers Samurai and Megaforce (with minor differences between the two), which was then remixed again for Power Rangers Dino Charge with lines added to the chorus and entirely new verses.
    • Recently, Ron Wasserman, the man who helped create many of the MMPR songs, went back and made new mixes of them and released them under the title "Power Rangers Redux".
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 had its theme song lyrics changed several times throughout its run to reflect on changes within the show (such as the switch from Joel to Mike).
    • Here's a handy-dandy flowchart laying out the various permutations of the theme.
      • There are currently 7 variations of the song - the KTMA version, the season 1-5 version (with season 2's visuals changing to replace Larry with Frank), the season 5.5-6 version (to bring in Mike), the season 7 version (replacing Frank with Pearl), the season 8-9 version (the "Endless Chase" version), the season 10 version (Castle Forrester) and the season 11/Netflix version.
    • Also a slower-tempo instrumental version of the theme plays during the closing credits.
    • The Netflix revival not only remixed the theme again but also remixed various classic songs from the first 10 years.
  • MTV's Unplugged series is pretty much devoted to this trope.
  • Each episode of The Prisoner (1967) used a slightly different mix of its opening theme tune.
  • The final season of Blake's 7 used a faster and jollier muzak-like version of the theme for its end credits only, without changing the opening credit version. This created a rather odd effect after some of the grimmer episodes of the show, especially the last one.
    • Incoming producer Vere Lorrimer wanted lyrics over the end credits. They were going to be sung by Steven Pacey (Tarrant). Thankfully we were spared that.
    There's a distant star in a distant sky
    past the edge of time way past Gemini.
    Peace is there, only beauty meets the eye.
    Oh my love, that's where we must fly,
    and let the world go by, just you and I.
    Come, hit the Stardust Trail, we'll throw our cap at Mars;
    we'll catch a comet's tail, and we'll sail to the stars!
    Though the years go by like a silver stream,
    if our love is true, we will find our dream.
    Travellin' on, suddenly that's where we are;
    That distant star, that distant star,
    that shining distant star!
  • The Wire used a remixed version of its theme song each season. In later seasons, the singers they used represented a theme of that season. Ex: Season 4 was about the plight of young black boys in Baltimore, and the theme was sung by a Boy's Choir.
    • The song is called "Way Down In The Hole," originally by Tom Waits. Season Two uses his original version of the song, while the other four seasons use cover versions of it.
  • The first two seasons of Small Wonder had a bouncy tune that didn't match it at all. The third season debuted a quasi-techno arrangement that was marginally better. (The lyrics were still terrible.)
  • Roseanne's theme song is known for its saxophone version, but some seasons have it played on the electric guitar. Vocals are added in the final season, which annoyed some fans. However, it redeems itself in the series' very last shot, where a woman sings the tune acappella as Rosie goes from her writing room to the living room and watches TV before everything fades to black.
  • Wheel of Fortune changed its theme song several times, and rearranged what it had.
    • The show's second (not counting pilots) theme, Griffin's own "Changing Keys" (introduced in August 1983), was re-orchestrated in 1984 (this version is the most familiar, as it appeared on an official game show themes compilation), 1989, 1992 (bizarrely, many episodes in this era still used the 1989 version anyway), 1994, and 1997, with the last two remixes making radical changes to the melody (although the 1994 version also had an alternate mix that stuck closer to the original). In addition to these, after the melody was changed in 1994, a few episodes used variations of the pre-1994 melody: a marching band version for episodes taped on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1995, another marching band version for College Weeks in 1995 and 1996, and a lap steel guitar version for weeks taped in Hawaii in 1996.
    • A separate opening theme was introduced in 1998 for road shows. This was still used until around 2007.
    • "Happy Wheels", first introduced in September 2000, was remixed in 2002 and again in 2007. The 2002-2007 mix even sampled the 1997 version of "Changing Keys".
  • Similarly, the 1980s Jeopardy! theme has gone through five orchestrations in its time. Spinoff Rock & Roll Jeopardy! used a rock and roll version, which the parent show has since appropriated for teen and college tournaments.
  • The first theme on The Joker's Wild was Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley's "The Savers". Among the many different theme songs used after that was a re-arrangement of "The Savers" done by Hal Hidey.
  • The original theme to Family Feud. The original theme (used on the original 1976-85 series hosted by Richard Dawson) was a re-arrangement of a music bed from The Price Is Right with a banjo added. Then, when Feud was revived in 1988 with Ray Combs, the theme was remixed in stereo with the banjo taken back out and a synthesized drum added. After Combs left and Dawson returned in 1994, they switched again to a slower, jazzy version for the one season that Dawson hosted. When Feud returned again in 1999, it used a bland, generic "party" theme for Louie Anderson and Richard Karn's tenures; it spent the next several years alternating between the "party" theme and the Combs theme until eventually settling on the latter halfway through John O'Hurley's run.
  • Blackadder always used the same melody, but performed it on different instruments with slight variations each season to reflect the change in time period.
    • The Black Adder, the first season, has the theme song performed mostly with trumpets and timpani in the style of a traditional Hollywood credit theme, with parody Bragging Theme Tune lyrics.
    • Blackadder II used a combination of recorder, string quartet, and electric guitar. There were no lyrics at the start, but a different set of lyrics for each individual episode, commenting on the plot, was used over the closing credits.
    • Blackadder the Third's theme was performed on oboe, cello, and harpsichord, with no lyrics.
    • The theme for Blackadder Goes Forth was performed by a military band, with no lyrics, combined with "The British Grenadiers".
      • The final scene featured a slow piano version of the theme played over a field of poppies.
    • The Christmas special Blackadder's Christmas Carol featured the song as sung by carolers, with new lyrics.
    • Blackadder: The Cavalier Years, a Comic Relief special, and Blackadder: Back & Forth, the Reunion Show, used an orchestral version. The end credits of Back & Forth had recapping lyrics.
  • Star Trek:
  • The Office (UK) most weeks featured a cover version of "Handbags and Gladrags" by "Big George", except for one episode (the training day episode) where it was performed by Ricky Gervais (as David Brent) on solo acoustic guitar.
  • Babylon 5 had a new arrangement of the theme tune for each season, save for season 3 and 5, becoming increasingly intense and militaristic to match the changing tone of the series.
    • The third season's theme was harmonically similar but completely different melodically. It took cues from two pieces late in season 2, each associated with a battle scene where the good guys got slaughtered. This season, of course, was the point in the storyline where things were the most desperate for our heroes, calling for a more turbulent mood. By the fourth season, the original melody returned as a Triumphant Reprise.
      • The fourth season ending theme, however, only lasted a few episodes. The third season ending was accidentally left in early on, and the showrunner JMS liked it. Amusingly, the season three ending itself didn't kick in for a few episodes—remembering to request it had simply fallen through the cracks.
    • In the fifth and final season, the theme song was replaced entirely with a new, rather bombastic march, possibly in reference to the fact that the station had transitioned from being a trading and diplomatic outpost to being capital of the new Interstellar Alliance.
  • In a Mythology Gag referring to the original series, the national anthem of the Twelve Colonies in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica is based on the main theme from the first show.
  • Psych will sometimes rearrange the theme song to fit the theme of the episode. The episode about a Spanish 'telenovella' features a mariachi version with Spanish lyrics, the episode about an Indian dancer had an Indian-style remix with lyrics in Hindi, and Boyz II Men revised the theme for the episodes featuring Gus' college a cappella group.
    • Also the first Christmas episode rearranged the theme to include bells, but the scenes in the credits were framed with snow and holly.
  • Newtons Apple used Kraftwerk''s "Ruckzuck" from 1983 to 1990, then used an arranged version from 1990 to 1994, before switching to a different theme entirely.
  • The A-Team used a synthesized arrangement of its theme for the final season.
  • 3-2-1 Contact remixed its opening theme in 1983(the best known version), and again in 1987. The original version. The ending theme was also rearranged in 1983 (short version and extended version), and remained the same for the rest of the series.
  • Square One TV also did it in its later seasons.
  • Fringe's two 1980s flashback episodes had a synth version of the theme music, to go with the retro title sequence.
  • A few seasons into the series' long run, the Bonanza theme received a driving, rock-oriented rearrangement.
  • Gunsmoke ran for 20 seasons, and its main theme song was rearranged for the closing credits multiple times throughout the show's run. The arrangements used in the black-and-white episodes (1955-1966) are very bare bones with string lead and percussion meant to sound like horseshoes. The color episodes that are most commonly seen in reruns feature more upbeat versions of the theme over the opening and closing credits with guitar, brass, flute, and tambourine. The themes used at the very top of the show for the first 14 seasons were completely different, only alluding to the melody of the basic theme as the title card appeared.
  • Weeds: Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" is used as the theme song for the first season; for the next two seasons, each episode starts with a cover of "Little Boxes" by someone else (e.g., Elvis Costello, Regina Spektor, The Decembrists), with Reynolds' version used for the season finales. From the fourth season on, though, they dropped the theme song entirely, as it no longer fit when Nancy and family left suburbia.
  • Veronica Mars used The Dandy Warhol's "We Used to Be Friends" for its theme. The third season, which moved from high school to college, switched to a dramatically different remix of the song - it was much slower and more electronic than indie rock. Allegedly, it was meant to have more of a noir feel to it.
  • Sesame Street kept its original theme for 23 seasons, then rearranged it to:
    • A calypso version in Season 24.
    • An arrangement in the spirit of the original in Season 30.
    • A funk version in Season 33.
    • A hip-hop-inspired version in Season 38.
    • A jazz version in Season 40 with the addition of acoustic and brass instruments, remixed in Season 42 with more percussion, and...
    • Most recently, a shorter folk-inspired version used since Season 46, when the series moved in first-run airings from PBS to HBO (PBS now airs episodes with a 9-month delay, with some exceptions, such as episodes dealing with serious issues).
  • PBS NewsHour kept the same arrangement of its theme for 30 years, before finally updating it in 2006.
  • When Snoop Dogg guest-starred on an episode of Monk, the theme song became this
  • For the second season of Wishbone the original theme tune was jazzed up with some electric guitar thrown in.
  • The Electric Company (1971) was a rather unusual case:
    • The opening themes during the show's 1971-1977 run were used for two years each – the first from 1971-1973, the second from 1973-1975, and the third from 1975-1977.
    • The closing themes changed five times, all (except the theme used very early in the run) using the main theme. They were as thus:
      • October 1971-January 1972: Extension of the main "corporate credits" theme, a nondescript theme.
      • January 1972-April 1973: A bright, marching theme, with a crashing sound effect at the very end. (The corporate credits theme continued to be used until the end of the 1972-1973 season.)
      • October 1973-April 1974: An electric guitar-heavy theme. The corporate credits hybrid the first half of the Friday credits during the first part and a slightly different second half, all slower paced.
      • October 1974-April 1975: A bright, uptempoed jazz-inspired arrangement.
      • October 1975-April 1976: Another jazz-style arrangement, somewhat louder than the 1974-75 version.
      • October 1976-April 1977: A Moog synthesizer-heavy arrangement that led the acoustic instruments.
  • The Price Is Right: For 35 years, the CBS daytime (along with the first two syndicated versions) used the same arrangement of the theme music - in fact, the same version that was used on the first episode in September 1972 was used on Bob Barker's final show in June 2007 (although slightly sped up to give it a stereo-ish sound). Finally, in October 2007, with the coming of Drew Carey's first shows, the main theme and most of the major cues were re-scored.
    • A 90s jazz arrangement was given to the main theme for the 1994 syndicated The New Price is Right, which was later picked up by some of the international versions (such as Bruce Forsyth's British version).
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: got rearranged theme music from season 3 on, but they kept the original arrangement for the closing credits.
  • Quantum Leap had its theme rearranged for its fifth season. The fans hated it. So it switched back to the original arrangement for the very final episode.
  • The first season of Beverly Hills, 90210 used a late-80's styled pop/dance rendition of the show's core theme. For season 2, the show switched to its more familiar rock/metal rendition of the theme, which was further refined at the beginning of Season 4.
  • For one week, All-Star Blitz used a very bizarre remix of their theme with some quasi-Scatting dubbed in ("All-Star Blitz! Hobba hum, hobba heeba humba…") before changing back to the original. Amusingly, the remix is the only version of the theme that circulates.
  • Craig Ferguson made slight alterations to his own "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune for The Late Late Show not long after its introduction, including a different vocal track and the addition of the line "You can always sleep through work tomorrow".
  • M*A*S*H had a rearranged version of its opening theme for Seasons Three, Five, Six, Seven, Nine, Ten, and the Grand Finale; and a rearranged version of its closing theme for Seasons Three, Six, Seven, Nine, Ten, and Eleven. Unusually for this trope, the rearrangements are subtle enough to be easily missed by casual viewers.
  • Between 1994 and 1997, the theme to The Red Green Show was altered to have more instrumentation, including a saxophone. This coincided with a change in the opening segment. The original theme came back.
  • When ABC revived Match Game in 1990, it used the 1973-82 theme rearranged with a calypso beat.
  • The 1950s version of The Mickey Mouse Club used a marching band rhythm. The retooled 1990's Disney Channel version. shortened to MMC, took on a hip-hop beat.
  • The Hollywood Squares: The original version had a disco version of the theme in its later years, while the 1980s revival rearranged its 80's sax theme in the final season.
  • Knots Landing featured a different arrangement of its theme song for each of its 14 seasons, including several complete overhauls of the melody's structure and instrumentation. For example, the first season theme was disco-flavored and brassy; nearly a decade later, the theme was much slower and layered with strings.
  • Many long-running American daytime soap operas have kept the same melody for many years, updating and rearranging frequently. Some notable examples:
    • All My Children: the 1990-1994 theme returned in 2002 with a new sound (further rearranged in 2004).
    • Days of Our Lives: went from the string orchestra original to a more electronic version in 1993.
    • Guiding Light: from 1983 to 1990, there were no less than five different variations on the same theme
    • The Young and the Restless: switched from the original piano/strings arrangement to a jazzier arrangement with saxophone and percussion in 1999 (switching back in 2003).
    • Many soaps using theme songs played on organ in the early 1970s switched to orchestrated versions of these themes, most notably As the World Turns and The Edge of Night.
  • Seinfeld attempted this in the Season Three opener "The Note." The classic slap bass theme was given background singersnote . Unfortunately, this experiment was deemed a failure. So, in the following episode, the instrumental versions of the show's theme and transitional tunes returned.
  • Classic Albums: The record producers, studio engineers, and the artist himself often take the original studio tracks from the album and let the audience listen to demo versions, outtakes, acoustic performances, the vocal parts only, guitar and bass part only, lead vocals only...
  • Each season of the The Muppet Show was different. Starting with Season 2, they dropped the part where Kermit the Frog sings To Introduce the guest star... part. And also, Gonzo no longer hits the gong; he now blows his trumpet.
    • When Season 3 came, they added the audience chanting Why don't you get things started?
    • During season 4, it was shorted with male and female singing It's time to play the music, It's time to light the lights, It's time to get things started.
    • Season 5 (the final season) had the full theme song. With Statler and Waldorf ranting Why do we always come here, I guess we'll never know, It's kinda like a torture, To have to watch the show!
  • The theme music for The Big Bang Theory appears to have been re-recorded at least twice over the eight seasons. This is fairly subtle and not immediately apparent to the ear; the biggest single reason was apparently to correct an error in the sung lyric that made the Universe fourteen million years old, as opposed to the more correct fourteen billion.
  • "The Hockey Theme", the "classic" Hockey Night In Canada/La Soirée du hockey'' theme, had been re-arranged five times before CBC/Radio-Canada lost the rights, and TSN/RDS had to make another arrangement upon gaining the theme's rights.
  • Barney & Friends' theme song has been done multiple times with different child singers, with the most recent one being a shortened hip-hop version.
  • The Secret Life of Us uses an edited version of "Death Defy" by Motor Ace. The season four credits slightly changed the arrangement, with the opening lines changed from the first half of the first verse to the second half:
    • Season 1-3: "Starting to get my head in your space,/Starting to lose track of the weekdays,/Starting to cook my brain in five ways/Trying to be cool."
    • Season 4: "Starting to lose my inhibitions,/Starting to make some bad decisions,/I'm listening to all your crap opinions,/Trying to be cool."
  • Outlander has adjusted its theme music several times to reflect the different settings of each season.
  • University Challenge had an upbeat jazz arrangement of its theme tune for most of its history. Sometime around 2000, it was replaced with a string quartet version which survives to this day.
  • On The Mentalist, the brief snippet of theme music that's played leading out of the opening teaser of each episode was given a subtle, slightly more jazzy rearrangement for the episodes that came after Patrick Jane killed Red John.
  • The famous theme song of Candid Camera had a different arrangement with each new version of the program. One notable arrangement was the arrangement done by Little Richard.
  • The 10th anniversary series of Death in Paradise introduced a new version of the theme tune, which notably fixed the infamous Soundtrack Dissonance which had affected every episode until that point: the Cold Open invariably ended with the discovery of a gruesome murder, which then crashed into the jaunty, upbeat theme tune. Whilst not by any means downbeat, the remix did slow it down a bit to make the transition less jarring.
  • Animal Planet's Emergency Vets had its opening theme rearranged in Season 4, though the closing credits theme remained the same.
  • Like Barney and Friends above, several songs on Inai Inai Baa! have been reused throughout the show's various changes, with the only difference being that a different child co-host sings the lyrics each time. In songs from the Rina-chan and Kana-chan eras that were remade from 2003 onward, U-Tan sings the lines that the puppets the character replaced (Kuu and Dada) sang. Perhaps the most interesting example of this was when "Genki Genki!" was used when Yuki-chan was the host. Originally, the song was a fast-paced one, but the version in question had a slower melody.
  • iCarly (2021) re-uses "Leave it All to Me" as its theme song. The version used in the first episode had a different instrumental for the bridge (the one from the studio recording in fact), while the subsequent episodes just use a shortened version.
  • Girls on Top: The theme tune in Series 1 was done by the four leads (French, Saunders, Wax and Ullman). This was kept for the first episode of Series 2 ("Mr Fluffy Knows Too Much"), but from "Big Snogs" and onward the theme tune was done by Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze.
  • Law & Order has a unique Instrumental Theme Tune, Opening Narration, and Title Sequence that is replicated in each of its six American spinoffs, slightly modified to fit the tone of each new show. How much the theme song is rearranged depends on largely on when the show came out. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, being the first, has a theme and title sequence most like the original, while the latest addition, Law & Order: Organized Crime has the most variation by using an orchestral arrangement and using a highly stylized version of the Title Sequence that forgoes many of the usual hallmarks, including being entirely in color. The only spinoff to abandon the theme completely is Law & Order: UK, for reasons unknown, as it still uses the Opening Narration and Signature Sound Effect of "chung-chung" in scene changes.
  • As heard in the intro, the theme song of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin is a remixed version of Secret, the theme of the original series.

    Music 
  • With the introduction of stereophonic recording in the late 1950s (as well as the concurrent phasing out of equipment to play 78 RPM records and resulting lack of availability of originals on 45 RPM singles), many country and pop music performers began re-recording many of their early hits, especially those that were popular in the 1930s through early 1950s timeframe. Notable examples include:
    • Ernest Tubb's "Walking the Floor Over You"; for years, his stereo version, recorded in January 1963, was preferred by music directors to the 1941 original. Many of his other hits from the 1940s through (at least) early 1950s were re-recorded from the late 1950s through early 1960s.
    • Kitty Wells, in particular her 1952 breakthrough "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels". The stereo version, a Nashville Sound-esque arrangement recorded in 1963, would for many years take the place of the honky-tonk styled original.
    • Patsy Cline's breakthrough hit "Walkin' After Midnight". The original hit version from 1957 had a 4/4-waltz shuffle, with elements of jazz, blues, and pop of the era. In 1961, shortly after she hit with "I Fall to Pieces," Cline recorded a new stereo version, which was noticeably more uptempo and had a big-band "pop" arrangement, featuring backing vocals and a pronounced "clip clop" percussion effect. Many music and program directors soon preferred the new version.
    • Lefty Frizzell, who in 1950 and 1951 had a series of legendary, genre-defining hits, including "Always Late With Your Kisses", "If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time", "I Love You a Thousand Ways", "Mom and Dad's Walz" and "I Want to Be With You Always." Those were among a series of songs he re-recorded in December 1958, shortly after the introduction of stereo and all with backing vocals and new instrumentation.
    • Red Foley, a prominent artist of the 1940s and early 1950s who combined elements of boogie, swing, and R&B with country music, re-recorded many of his biggest hits – including his two No. 1 hits of 1950, "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" and "M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I" – in 1963. These Owen Bradley-produced versions soon replaced the original non-stereo versions in many record libraries.
    • Sonny James has done this several times as well, most notably with:
      • His 1957 hit "Young Love". At least three re-recordings were made between 1962 and 1970, and it was often the 1970 version, recorded in a lower key than the original hit version, that was preferred by music programmers for a time.
      • In 1971, when he announced he was in the midst of leaving Capitol Records for the CBS family of labels, he recorded a new version of the flip side of "Young Love", called "You're the Reason I'm In Love", this time in a brighter, horn-heavy arrangement. When it came time to release the song in the spring of 1972, James even gave the song a new name to go along with the new arrangement: "That's Why I Love You Like I Do". The original "You're the Reason ..." charted and went to No. 6 in early 1957, but "That's Why I Love You ... " did even better, going to No. 1 on the country chart.
    • Webb Pierce recorded most of his early 1950s hits in late 1963 and early 1964, most notably a Nashville Sound-esque "There Stands the Glass". That was his second go-round with some of his hits; in 1960, he re-recorded his biggest hit, "In the Jailhouse Now," for a new album called Webb With a Beat, and this rockabilly version (in stereo, natch) soon replaced the original 1955 honky-tonk version that was for years one of just three songs to top the country chart for 21 weeks. (Incidentally, Pierce's 1955 hit version was at least the second time he re-recorded the song; the 1951 original failed to become a hit, while his second recording, recorded less than two months before the hit version, was never issued as a single.)
    • Hank Thompson: Among his several re-recordings of his 1952 "The Wild Side of Life" was the 1962 stereo version, done in the Nashville Sound arrangement with backing vocals, that was preferred for many years by music directors.
    • Hank Snow re-recorded several of his late 1940s/early 1950s singles in stereo, including his biggest hit "I'm Moving On" (complete with a more upbeat arrangement and backing vocals). For a time, the new stereo version was the most popular before reverting back to the original 12-bar blues version.
    • Eddy Arnold has done this on many occasions through the years. Examples:
      • He recorded no less than four notable, distinctive versions of "Cattle Call". The first was recorded in 1944 and released as a (non-charting) single in the spring of 1945, done in the typical 1940s Western style of the genre. His first re-recording, from 1955, was done in an orchestra pop style, becoming a No. 1 hit late that summer. The first stereo version was recorded in 1961 and although not issued as a single, this acoustic guitar-prominent rendition became the version by far most familiar to country radio audiences of the mid-1960s onward, again as radio programmers were phasing out their older, non-stereo library for new stereo re-recordings by the same artists. Finally a third re-recording featured Arnold as guest vocalist on a new pop-country version by teen superstar LeAnn Rimes; Rimes' version was recorded in 1999 and became a minor hit late that fall. (Additionally, Arnold recorded the song twice more, the first in 1949 and yet another re-recording in 1973 (so that his then-new label, MGM Records, could cash in.) Not bad for what was essentially a cover version of a Tex Owens cowboy tune recorded more than a decade before the Tennessee Plowboy's first version.
      • One of his best-selling albums was his 1960 Greatest Hits album Eddy Arnold Sings Them Again, containing 12 of his biggest hits from the late 1940s through mid-1950s: "Bouquet Of Roses", "Molly Darling", "The Lovebug Itch", "I'll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)", "I Wanna Play House With You", "It's a Sin", "Anytime", "I Walk Alone", "You Don't Know Me", "A Heart Full Of Love (For a Handful of Kisses)", "I Really Don't Want To Know" and "Texarkana Baby". Each of these songs were done in the then-prevalent Nashville Sound style, complete with strings and backing vocalists.
    • Hank Williams also has been given this treatment. Thirteen years after his death, MGM Records issued an album called The Legend Lives Anew, with new instrumental arrangements, overdubs, backing vocals, and so forth on 12 of his legendary hits. In other words, what would Hank Sr. have sounded like had he lived and was still recording in the mid-1960s — he would have been 43 years old in 1966, the year the album was issued — and perhaps having adopted the then-prevalent Nashville Sound. Critics didn't really take to it, and while there surely were new Hank Sr. fans as a result of this album, most preferred his original 78s ... and most country music radio station music libraries of the era kept the original versions.
      • Additionally, several of Hank Sr.'s original vocal tracks were given more new life in the mid-1960s, this time for an album of "duets" with his son, Hank Jr.. Again, the songs were rearranged for the mid-1960s. Incidentally, one of those tracks was a hit for Hank Sr. in 1949: "Mind Your Own Business"; That duet version, uptempo honky-tonk as it were, has been long forgotten, but yet another rearrangement, this time a hard-driving southern rocker from 1986, featuring guest vocalists trading off verses – Reba McEntire, Tom Petty, the Rev. Ike, and Willie Nelson – that became one of the iconic hits of the late 1980s.
      • In the late 1980s, yet another Hank Sr. original was rearranged, this time an old recording from a 1952 recording session that was never released called "There's a Tear In My Beer." Hank Sr.'s vocals were lifted from the original early 1950s honky-tonk music track, a new hard-driving honky-tonk track was recorded, and Hank Jr. recorded vocals for the song. With that, a top-10 hit duet (in 1989, 36 years after Hank Sr.'s death) and award-winning video were born.
    • Jim Reeves, among the most popular country vocalists of the late 1950s and early 1960s, had recorded hundreds of songs prior to his tragic 1964 death in a plane crash. This enabled RCA Records to keep giving new life to many of "Gentleman Jim"'s unreleased songs, as late as 1982, 18 years after his death. Chet Atkins and company kept updating the tracks as new singles were released, and even after the last of his five posthumous No. 1 songs were issued, he kept hitting the top 10 for several years, and was still reaching the top 40 into the early 1980s. Several of Reeves' songs were given "duet" treatment: in 1979, up-and-coming singer-songwriter Deborah Allen had her first hits with three Reeves "duets" (all with late 1970s instrumentation replacing the original early 1960s music); and more famously, a "duet" with Patsy Cline, who died in 1963 (ironically, also in a plane crash) on a song each of them had recorded: "Have You Ever Been Lonely (Have You Ever Been Blue)," a top-5 country hit and a minor pop hit in early 1982 (complete with a new musical track recorded in early 1981).
    • Jimmie Rodgers: In the mid-1950s, several of his original recordings were given new backing arrangements to update the sound, from late 1920s/early 1930s to a mid-1950s honky-tonk arrangement. Based on the success of Webb Pierce's "In the Jailhouse Now", RCA Records in 1955 released a "new" version of Rodgers' "In the Jailhouse Now" (an update of the original 1928 recording, with Hank Snow and his backing band, the Rainbow Ranch Boys, recording a new instrumental track), and it reached No. 7 on the Billboard country charts.
    • Leroy Van Dyke's first hit, 1957's "Auctioneer", began as a simple three-instrument song: a couple of guitars and drum. Later versions are more uptempo and have more instrumentation, and at least one other has two Truck Driver's Gear Changes.
    • Willie Nelson has done this with several of his songs, with some of the re-recordings becoming the hit version:
      • "Me and Paul", a tribute to his friendship and collaborations with drummer Paul English, was originally recorded and released on an album in 1971, during his days with RCA Records. The original was the B-side of the song "(A Taste Of) Yesterday's Wine", (years later, a duet No. 1 hit by Merle Haggard and George Jones). A more uptempo version was recorded in 1985 for the album of the same name ... and that version was released as a single in the fall of 1985, reaching the top 15.
      • "Bloody Mary Morning", originally recorded in 1970 for his album Both Sides Now. Much more uptempo than the original – the context was now a man who is left by his wife – the 1974 version (for his album Phases and Stages) became a top-20 hit.
      • "Whiskey River", a track on his landmark 1973 album Shotgun Willie. A re-recording of the song, done in concert, became a huge hit in 1979 and was included on his album Willie and Family Live.
      • "Pretty Paper", the Christmas song discussed below.
    • Tommy Edwards initially recorded "It's All in the Game", "Please Mr. Sun" and "The Morning Side of the Mountain" in 1951 with slow string-heavy arrangements and they proved decent hits. He remade "It's All in the Game" in 1958 with a "rock and roll" arrangement and got a #1 hit in the U.S (one of the earliest on the modern Billboard Hot 100 chart) and the U.K. Similar updated remakes of "Please Mr. Sun" and "The Morning Side of the Mountain" were recorded and released on the same single in 1959, with the former reaching #11 on the Hot 100.
    • Nat King Cole:
      • He released The Nat King Cole Story in 1961, a retrospective of his career that featured stereo remakes of his Trio and solo recordings, though a few of the songs were recent enough that they were already in stereo to begin with and were thus included as-is. (Strangely enough, "Non Dimenticar", which was extant in stereo, was remade regardless.) This is where his fourth version of "The Christmas Song" (see below) debuted; it was later included in its own album, which was actually a repackaged reissue of The Magic of Christmas, plus this song and minus "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen".
      • In the years following his untimely passing in 1965, Capitol released several albums of various released and unreleased material with instrumental overdubs meant to update the songs to mid-1960s standards. Like the similar Hank Williams experiment, critical response was tepid and most Cole fans only bother with them for completeness, morbid curiosity, and/or to get otherwise unavailable tracks.
  • "Red, Red Wine," a somber forget-about-her, wallow-in-misery song written by Neil Diamond. This was the standard arrangement for Diamond's original recording and a 1972 hit version by country singer Roy Drusky (who was compared to Perry Como during his 1960s and early 1970s heyday). Then came a new reggae version by English band UB40, and their upbeat-sounding 1980s remake virtually changed the song overnight, especially after a re-release of the song in 1988 (with toast bridge) soared to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. So much so that both Diamond and Drusky – among many others – had to add reggae-style beats whenever they performed "Red, Red Wine," even for fans that remembered their original versions.
    • Frank Sinatra remade six of the eight songs on his 1950 Columbia album Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra for his 1961 Capitol album Sinatra's Swingin Session! with new stereo arrangements. He also remade songs he recorded with Tommy Dorsey with new arrangements by Dorsey arranger Sy Oliver for his 1961 Reprise album I Remember Tommy.
  • More recently, with the advent of budget-priced compilation albums, recording artists – way too many to mention – have been asked to re-record some of their biggest hits for these new various artists albums, including some whose songs were released as late as the 1990s. The quality of these compilations has varied greatly from excellent (and sometimes even surpassing the originals) to subpar.
  • Christmas songs:
    • Nat King Cole's seminal version of "The Christmas Song". Four versions of the song exist: the first 1946 recording which only featured the Trio and was not issued until it was accidentally included in a various artists compilation in 1989, the second 1946 recording which featured the Trio augmented with a string quartet and a harp, a 1953 recording with full orchestra and the most familiar by far 1961 stereo recording with an almost identical full orchestra arrangement. Aside from the stereo sound, the 1961 version can be told apart from the 1953 version by Cole's voice being much deeper and more focused than on the earlier take.
    • Willie Nelson's version of "Pretty Paper". The original downbeat, bluesy version was recorded in 1964 when he was with RCA Records. While that version still gets some airplay, the most familiar version by far — recorded in 1979 for his Christmas album — had his signature sound of the 1970s and 1980s.
    • Gene Autry recorded new stereo versions of two of his most famous songs — "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Here Comes Santa Claus" in 1957. Of "Rudolph ...", both the new version and the original 1949 mono record are still played today; "Here Comes Santa Claus," almost all music directors stuck with the 1947 original.
  • Bob Dylan has become probably the most notorious example in modern pop music, frequently playing live versions of his old songs that sound very different from the original recordings, or previous live reworkings. Fans are divided on whether this is a self-indulgent "fuck you" to fans, or a sign of his artistic genius.
  • Elvis Costello rearranged "Watching the Detectives" to an Orchestral Big Band number out of the 1950s.
  • Paul McCartney has done this repeatedly from The '70s on. His album Wingspan has two different mixes of "No More Lonely Nights" on it, and he once released a classical album in which half the pieces were reworkings of lesser-known songs of his. Then there are the concert versions of "Maybe I'm Amazed" (which is usually as good as the original from McCartney), "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"—though he probably borrowed that one from Jimi Hendrix—and the "Carry That Weight {You Never Give Me Your Money)" mix. (Two Beatlesongs he wrote most of, with one major melody in common...)
    • John Lennon wrote "One After 909" in 1962 and recorded it with the Beatles with a skiffle beat. It didn't get heard until 1995 on volume one of the The Beatles Anthology package. The version that did get released was on the Let It Be album. It had a different tempo to it but the structure was the same.
    • McCartney wrote "Come and Get It" for Badfinger—it was written for the movie The Magic Christian and was released as a single on the Beatles' Apple label. McCartney recorded it as a guide for Badfinger with a slower tempo and slightly higher pitch than what Badfinger would eventually do. This appeared on volume three of The Beatles Anthology.
    • A downplayed case happened to The Beatles' very first single, "Love Me Do". George Martin didn't like Ringo Starr's drumming, so he scheduled a re-recording with a session drummer - this version is easy to notice because Ringo plays a tambourine to still be in the track.
  • Post-Visual Kei band Dir en grey has rearranged and rereleased a lot of their old material. Most of them are remastered versions of old songs ("-Zan-", "Rasetsukoku", some songs from the original version of UROBOROS), but many songs have been completely rewritten in an entirely different style.
  • Miyuki Nakajima redoes her songs for her Yakai stage shows, sometimes even completely and literally rearranging them, as with the song "Kodoku no Shouzo." (The original can be heard here.)
  • Eric Clapton has done a soulful, unplugged version of his own song, "Layla." Opinions vary.
  • The Police released a 1985 remix of "Don't Stand So Close To Me", featuring a more electronic-based arrangement and a somewhat different chorus melody. It, along with an unreleased version of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", were done like that because Stewart Copeland had broken his collarbone and couldn't drum, so he did it all electronically - and the arguments with him and Sting about which synth to use were so aggressive that they served as the last straw to break up the band.
    • Sting did a piano and voice version of "Roxanne" for the Live Aid show.
    • Sting also re-recorded his 1996 hit "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" with Toby Keith a year later because Keith had wanted to cover it.
  • Sixties bands loved turning old blues songs into insane rock-outs. Led Zeppelin are probably most famous for it.
  • Megadeth was infamous for this during the '80s. Their first three albums all had covers, the first two being chosen especially to be as far as possible from Megadeth's patented "speed metal" sound; "These Boots Were Made For Walking", a pop song, and "I Ain't Superstitious", a blues song. Their cover of "These Boots" especially, which humorously altered the lyrics to make them more blatantly sexual, drew the ire of the song's original writer, who demanded that they rerelease said album without the offending track.
    • These songs were well received, but when they did a played straight version of Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK", where Mustaine threw in his own 'edgy' lyrics because he forgot the originals, it was badly received.
    • Mustaine has also done this with his own songs, notably "A Tout La Monde" which was rearranged with Cristina Scabbia singing guest vocals. The reaction to this was mixed. It attracted a lot of new fans, but many older fans were annoyed because they felt the rerecorded version would overshadow the original (and for a brief period, they were right).
  • New Order are infamous for rearranging their own songs, numerous times.
    • The band re-recorded "Temptation" and "Confusion" (two non-album singles that were the band's first major hits) for the 1987 compilation Substance, leaving the original versions of the songs unavailable on CD for years until Singles was released in 2005.
    • Most of the band's singles feature a B-side consisting of either a remix of the A-side or a remix of a previous single. The practice got especially common in the '90s, completely supplanting original B-sides after 2002.
    • Their Signature Song "Blue Monday" comes in at least three different base versions: the 1983 original, "Blue Monday 1988" (a remix by Quincy Jones, who owned their US label, Qwest Records), and "Blue Monday-95" (made for the 1995 Remix Album (the rest of) NewOrder). Counting alternate remixes included as B-sides (e.g. "The Beach"), the number goes up to thirteen different arrangements.
    • They played a Drum and Bass inflected update of their 1980 Joy Division song "Isolation" at the 1998 Reading festival; it's on a John Peel session recording.
  • Paul Hardcastle's singles "19" and "Rain Forest" were re-recorded for his self-titled album, and for many years, these were the only versions available on CD.
  • Pet Shop Boys:
    • They re-recorded their debut single "West End Girls" for their first album Please, and its B-Side, "One More Chance", for their second album Actually.
    • "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" was likewise remixed by Stephen Hague, who also produced the re-recording of "West End Girls", for Please; this is the version that was a worldwide hit and most people know.
    • They turned their bombastic synthpop song "Can You Forgive Her?" into an early-'40s big band arrangement, complete with chilled-out, breathy vocals, for the B-side of the single.
  • Michael Jackson's Thriller 25, with 2008 versions of Beat It, P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing), Billie Jean, The Girl is Mine and Wanna Be Startin' Something from Thriller.
  • MC Hammer has two versions of "This Is The Way We Roll" on his "2 Legit To Quit" album: a lively fast-paced version with back-up singers and a slower "OakTown" version.
  • The original version of "Empire State of Mind" with Jay-Z and Alicia Keys has been broken down just by Alicia into a slower, melodic version called "Empire State of Mind II, Broken Down".
  • Mike Oldfield has released at least four different versions of Tubular Bells, each slightly different from the one before.
  • Bon Voyage (the Starflyer 59 side project) featured two different versions of a song on the same album, Lies (and not even as a bonus track, either). "Monster" is the original, and "Bad Dream" is the same lyrics with the backing music chopped into tiny pieces and rearranged.
  • Woven Hand has made two soundtrack albums, Blush Music and Puur, which feature rearrangements of prior songs (usually to make the songs longer).
  • The Split Enz tribute album "eNZso" features old hits retooled into orchestral versions performed by various vocalists and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
  • Used liberally in Irish rock band Gaelic Storm's stage shows where they'll announce that one of their shows has been picked up by <insert famous singer> and then performing the song in the given style of the artist.
  • Shudder to Think's Craig Wedren apparently likes doing this with his song "Day Ditty": Shudder to Think first recorded it as a 2-minute minimal ballad on Funeral At The Movies, then it later reappeared on the First Love Last Rites soundtrack as a fairly lavish 4 minute Phil Spector homage, with Angela McCluskey on guest vocals. And then Wedren's more electronic-based project BABY retitled it "Leaving Day Ditty" and gave it more of a trip-hop feel.
  • Kylie Minogue has done this a lot. She has remade various songs into ballads, jazz, and electronica.
  • One-Hit Wonder trance group Binary Finary's "1998" has seen about a dozen arrangements.
  • One-Hit Wonder Real Life rearranged "Send Me an Angel" in 1989 to a more Hi-NRG type sound; this version has frequently been misattributed to the Pet Shop Boys or Erasure. Real Life released another re-recording of "Angel" in 2009, alongside remasters of the original 1983 mixes.
  • Ayla's self-titled single, originally released in 1996, was rearranged by DJ Taucher(Ralph Armand Beck) in 1997, so much that it sounded nothing like the original, which promptly faded into obscurity. In turn, DJ Tandu (another alias of Ingo Kunzi, the main man behind Ayla) did a rearrangement based on Taucher's version in 1999, then that version itself was covered by Kosmonova.
  • Radiohead has done this with "Morning Bell" (rearranged on their next album, Amnesiac, as (appropriately enough) "Morning Bell/Amnesiac") and the b-side "Fog" (a live piano version titled "Fog (Again)").
    • "Thinking About You" was first released on their debut EP Drill as an uptempo, somewhat Pop Punk style song with distorted guitar - when it appeared on Pablo Honey a year later, it was revamped as an acoustic ballad.
  • The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu aka The KLF are credited with pioneering a new approach to song mixing. They would continually tweak, remix, and rerelease their material, with no version being the definitive one. Engineer Mark Stent told Sound on Sound magazine:
    It was in working with Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty that things really started to happen in a new way, using mixing as a work-in-progress, rather than an end stage. We were running everything live in the studio, from sequencers and samplers. Obviously there was also stuff on tape, but they would come in with their Ataris and Akai samplers, and we would end up rearranging the whole song whilst mixing things. They would then take away what we did, work on it again, and come back a while later, and I'd mix stuff again. My KLF work put me in the picture, and after that, the phone never stopped ringing.
    • Their Signature Song "What Time Is Love?" went through numerous permutations. First it was an instrumental acid house song in 1988. In 1990, the "Live at Trancentral" mix transformed it into stadium house, cranking up the volume and adding rap vocals. (A shortened version of this mix appeared on their 1991 album The White Room.) In 1991, it gained glam rock vocals and guitars to become "America (What Time is Love)". Then, for KLF's 1997 reunion show (under the name 2K), they remixed it yet again as "Fuck the Millenium", adding a brass band, a harder techno beat, angry chanting, samples from nearly all of KLF's prior singles, and a church hymn as an interlude. And that's not even counting all the "What Time Is Love?" remixes by other artists that appeared as KLF b-sides...
  • Chiodos did two different rearrangements of the demo "Thermacare" (recorded with old vocalist Craig Owens). After the band's split, Chiodos recorded a different version of the song with different lyrics, "Stratovolcano Mouth" featuring new vocalist Brandon Bolmer, whereas Owens recorded a new song over Thermacare's lyrics, "The Only Thing You Talk About".
  • Bruce Springsteen:
    • He has done this on his live shows on occasion. His live version of "Atlantic City" more fully incorporates the E Street Band(the original version from the album "Nebraska" was just him on guitar and harmonica).
    • "Born in the U.S.A." was originally written with a more somber sound and a darker melody in mind, a sparse number featuring just himself, acoustic guitar, and, toward the end, a simple electric guitar part and a One-Woman Wail. This iteration of the song, intended for Nebraska, would not see the light of day until the Tracks outtake compilation, shelved in favor of the more bombastic, cheery-sounding, synth-laden version on Born in the U.S.A.
    • While touring with the Sessions Band (the band with which he recorded We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions), he re-arranged "If I Should Fall Behind" as a waltz.
  • Coil took their 1991 signature song "Teenage Lightning" and released a new version in 2004. Both editions are notable for fully displaying the sound and technological aesthetics of the band during their respective periods.
    • A flamenco guitar version (retitled "Lorca not Orca") and an edited version ("Teenage Lightning 1") appear on the CD version of their album Love's Secret Domain.
  • Marcus Kinchin's dub remix of the Nightcrawlers' "Push The Feeling On" so eclipsed the original that it became the basis for all subsequent remixes. In turn, the song was re-recorded in 2003 with new lyrics, in addition to re-interpolating the Simlish vocal snippets.
  • Underworld's biggest song, "Born Slippy .NUXX" is actually an In Name Only remix of their song "Born Slippy". ".NUXX" became so popular that it overshadowed the original after its use in the film Trainspotting. Underworld revisited ".NUXX" in 2003 for a greatest hits album, downplaying the relentless percussion-only accompaniment with a piano part.
  • A rare unreleased edition of the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way", subtitled "No Goodbyes", had revised lyrics - this was because the band initially had misgivings about the original Word Salad Lyrics, but ultimately kept them for the album:
    No goodbyes (Ain't nothing but a heartache)
    No more lies (Ain't nothing but a mistake)
    That is why (I love it when I hear you say)
    I want it that way
  • Bjorn Lynne (formerly Dr. Awesome)'s Revive album consisted of reworks of his old MOD songs.
  • Collage's signature song "I'll Be Loving You" was rerecorded in 2007.
  • Stevie B.:
    • In 2007 he remade "Spring Love" with Pitbull.
    • In 1999, Stevie updated Jaya's "If You Leave Me Now", which he produced and sang backup on, as a duet between him and Alexia Phillips.
  • Butthole Surfers' 1991 Pioughd had them remaking their 1983 Noise Rock rant "Something" In the Style of The Jesus and Mary Chain as a joke.
    • Guitarist Paul Leary's solo album Born Stupid included rearrangements of songs he'd written with Butthole Surfers: "Gary Floyd Revisited" turns the garage punk "Gary Floyd" into a gentle psych-folk ballad, and "The Shah Revisited" turns the Hardcore Punk of "The Shah Sleeps In Lee Harvey's Grave" into very lyrically dissonant country/gospel music.
  • The Residents had a tradition of revamping their first official single "Santa Dog" every four years, with the purpose of demonstrating their musical development and the new technology available to them since then. Among the most dramatically changed versions were "Where Are Your Dogs? Show Us Your Ugly", which added a lot more lyrics and stretched the originally under 2-minute song to almost 13 minutes, and the self-explanatory "Santa Dog for Gamelan Orchestra". There was also the album Our Finest Flowers, which deconstructed their own songs both by using different instrumentation and combining bits and pieces of different songs from throughout their career into new compositions.
  • When Violent Femmes had to re-record "Blister In The Sun" for the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack (having temporarily lost the original master track), they submitted one version that was as close to the original in arrangement as possible, and one that slowed down the tempo and arranged the song for saxophone, xylophone, violin, bass, and drums. Both ended up on the soundtrack album, with the second version being dubbed "Blister 2000".
  • When "No Rain" became Blind Melon's biggest hit and they started getting bored of playing it at every show, they added a new intro, playing it as slow psychedelic blues for about a minute before segueing into the more familiar Folk Rock of the album version. A full studio recording in that style (without the Song Style Shift) appeared on the outtake / Posthumous Collaboration album Nico, under the title "No Rain (Ripped Away Version)".
  • Ministry's "Halloween (2010 Evil Version)" essentially updates their old Synth-Pop single "Everyday Is Halloween" to their current Industrial Metal sound. They would later also do an "Unplugged Version" with Dave Navarro on acoustic guitar.
  • Skinny Puppy:
    • The 1987 double album CD, Bites & Remission, "Assimilate" and "The Choke" were reworked as the "R23" and "Regrip" mixes, respectively. The stand-alone CD rerelease of Remission included revamps of "Film" and "Icebreaker", the latter of whose intro was extended into a prelude track titled "Manwhole".
    • Their 2013 album Weapon includes a new version of "Solvent", originally released on Remission.
  • Roger Taylor and Brian May of Queen rerecorded "We Are The Champions" with Robbie Williams in 2001, for the soundtrack to A Knight's Tale.
  • "Not Over Yet" by Grace (a project of Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne) was rearranged by Planet Perfecto (another Oakenfold supergroup) in 1999, then more drastically as "It's Not Over" in 2006 on Oakie's A Lively Mind album.
  • Fear Factory collaborated with Gary Numan to remake his hit single "Cars" In the Style of Industrial Metal.
  • In addition to having a straight Unplugged Version of the song, Tonic also released an "Adult Version" of "If You Could Only See": This was a lighter and softer take on the song tailored specifically for soft rock/ adult alternative stations that might consider the Post-Grunge riffs of the album version too harsh.
  • Nena released a completely new version of her famous 1980s hit "99 Luftballons" in 2002.
  • Older Than Radio in religious circles, as hymns have often been sung with new melodies and new arrangements for hundreds of years. That famous melody that everyone knows? Probably not the original melody the hymn was first sung with. Modern Christian artists have taken to reusing the lyrics and adding new choruses to them. For example, Chris Tomlin's Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone).
    • Many of J.S. Bach's sacred cantatas include movements based on Lutheran hymns, or chorales, of the time. The most famous is Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (BWV 80), which utilizes the melody of Martin Luther's hymn of the same name in almost all of the movements. Bach also appropriated the chorale melodies for his chorale preludes.
  • Assemblage 23's "Decades V2", released on the Meta album, is a revamped version of the original "Decades" that was released on the compilation Accession Records: Volume 3.
  • The US version of Covenant's "Edge of Dawn", from Dreams of a Cryotank, is a bit different from the original European version, with rerecorded vocals and a Vader Breath-like sample during the intro. The US edition of the album also had a remixed version of "Theremin" as a bonus track. In addition, "Voices", "Speed" and "Figurehead" were reworked for the Theremin EP.
  • Kraftwerk:
    • The Mix, released in 1991, is a compilation of rearrangements of their greatest hits.
    • Their full remakes of their previous albums (played in their live performances from 2012 onwards) were compiled into the 3-D Der Katalog compilation set in 2017
  • O' Cracker Where Art Thou? had Cracker rearranging their own songs in more of a bluegrass style, in collaboration with Leftover Salmon.
  • Sound Horizon almost always plays rearranged versions of their songs on Territorial Expansion tours. How much they rearrange any given song varies. Sometimes it's simply rearranging the vocalists, other times they change they change the instrumentation or make medleys, and then there was the one time they did a duet version "Koibito wo Uchiotoshita Hi" — On an accordion.
  • Sixties mod group The Creation did a much more synthesized rendition of "Making Time" for their aborted '80s comeback album Psychedelic Rose. Unfortunately for those looking for the original version, only the eighties remake is available on itunes.
  • In the wake of the mid-1990s line-dance craze, countless Country Music songs were given "dance mixes" that mainly consisted of amping up the bass and drums, and adding an instrumental "breakdown" in the middle to draw out the song for another minute or two. Compare the original and "club mix" versions of Brooks & Dunn's "Boot Scootin' Boogie", one of the first such remixes.
  • My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden loves electronic music, so her first two albums (Bring Me the Workhorse and A Thousand Shark's Teeth) were each followed by albums of other artists remixing the songs from those albums (Tear It Down and Shark Remixes, respectively).
  • Calexico had a dark, stripped-down folk song named "Trigger" on their album The Black Light. Later, on their album Carried to Dust, they re-recorded it as a fast instrumental, reminiscent of an orchestral Western film soundtrack, and called it "El Gatillo (Trigger Revisited)".
  • Bananarama's 2005 remixes of "Venus" (produced by Mark Almond of Soft Cell) and "Saying Something", both featured on their comeback album Drama.
  • Londonbeat remade their hit "I've Been Thinking About You" as a duet with Damae Klein of Fragma.
  • 4 Strings' "Take Me Away (Into the Night)" is a vocal rearrangement of an instrumental simply titled "Into the Night". In turn, it was reworked again in 2006. Also, Carlo Resoort reworked "Turn it Around", an older production of his originally sung by Alena, as a 4 Strings song with Vanessa on vocals.
  • Alex Megane's trance/dance hit "Hurricane" was remixed in 2009 with a new singer.
  • Humpty Vission & Rozalla - "Everybody's Free 2000"
  • The 1993 compilation No Alternative featured a live version of Beastie Boys' "New Style" that was entirely different from the Licensed to Ill version aside from most of the lyrics - it seemed like an attempt to update the song to their current sound.
  • Groove Coverage has reworked their cover of Mike Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow" at least twice, first as a Softer and Slower Cover in 2006, then as an electro-rap version with P.S.Y. (not to be confused with PSY of "Gangnam Style" fame) in 2012.
  • The Beach Boys did two editions of "Help Me Rhonda", the first being the single release, and the second with the false fade-outs at the end.
  • Cyndi Lauper:
    • Cyndi Lauper did a slower reggae-style arrangement of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" in 1994, with a Shout-Out to "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone ("Hey now, hey now, what's the matter...") added.
    • Her album The Body Acoustic consists mostly of re-worked versions of her own songs, including an acoustic version of "She Bop".
  • Two of the three b-sides of Versailles's single "ROSE" are redone versions of older songs: a re-recording of "The Red Carpet Day" and the Japanese version of "Love will be born again", which turns it into a Power Ballad.
  • One of the B-sides of D's single "Snow White" ("Snow White 'Another Gift'") is a harder arrangement of the titular song, turning it from a Power Ballad to straight-up metal. They've also recorded a parody version of their Signature Song "Night-ship 'D'", called "Nyanto-shippo 'De'!?"
  • Ferry Corsten/System F produced no less than four arrangements of his hit single "Out of the Blue": the original 1999 version, the 5 AM mix, the 2002 Second Edition remix, and the 2008 Violin Edit, which incorporates an orchestral interlude, but is otherwise identical to the original. Ferry also updated two of his early singles originally produced under the alias Moonman; "Galaxia" in 2005, released on his LEF album, and "Don't Be Afraid" in 2012, on Wknd.
  • Rygar, one of several Italo-spacesynth projects fronted by Michiel van der Kuy, rerecorded his/their classic single "Star Tracks" in 2012, also replacing MVDK's vocoder vocals with synthetic female vocals. "Space Raiders" also received an update as "Space Raiders Part II".
  • Melvins' Electroretard was half cover songs, half new versions of their own songs - the rearrangements usually included more electronic experimentation and calmer, more intelligible vocals. The song with the most pronounced difference may be "Revolve" - the original was a fairly accessible straightforward hard rock song, whereas the Electroretard version removes the driving rhythm, replaces the distorted guitar tone with a strange phasing effect, adds some atonal high-pitched synthesizers, and omits the chorus entirely.
  • Broken Social Scene released an alternate version of "Lover's Spit" as a B-Side (as later collected on the compilation Bee Hives): It's a longer, more stripped-down take on the song, but more notably Feist sings lead vocals instead of Kevin Drew.
  • Der Dritte Raum, a German techno duo, remade their classic trance track "Hale Bopp" as a jazz house tune titled "Swing Bop", featured on their 2010 album Rosa Rausch.
  • In 1997, Silverchair collaborated with Electronica / Industrial Metal artist Vitro on "Spawn", a song for the soundtrack of The Movie of the comic of the same name. A couple of years later, they re-recorded it for Neon Ballroom as "Spawn Again" - the drum machine and industrial effects Vitro added to the song were removed, putting more emphasis on the guitars, the introduction was entirely different, and the vocals became more aggressive. "Spawn Again" also added more lyrics - where "Spawn" could be mistaken for a morbid variety of word salad, "Spawn Again" is more clearly a Protest Song about animal rights.
    • "Anthem for the Year 2000 (A Capella)", released as a B-Side, is their Alternative Rock Protest Song "Anthem for the Year 2000" as covered by an uncredited youth choir.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach:
    • Bach occasionally turned his concertos in a variety of different instruments into harpsichord concertos. Quite a few of these harpsichord concertos are the only existing versions of now-lost concertos for other instruments.
    • Bach also rearranged several violin concertos by Vivaldi into harpsichord concertos. Perhaps the most insane example is Bach's arrangement of Vivaldi's Concerto No. 10 in B minor for four violins, cello, and strings (RV 580) into the Concerto for four harpsichords and strings (BWV 1065).
    • Bach is also famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) for using themes from earlier works in later pieces, a technique called "parody". One very obvious example involves the third movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1. Much of it was reworked into the first movement of the secular cantata Auf, schmetternde Töne der muntern Trompeten (Arise, blaring tones of high-spirited trumpets). In fact, the cantata is almost literally the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 with lyrics!
  • Keith Urban has done this twice: first, in 2001, he re-recorded "Where the Blacktop Ends" for the single release, and in 2008, he re-recorded "You Look Good in My Shirt" (an album cut from 2002's Golden Road) and released the re-recording as a single from a Greatest Hits Album.
  • Jeff Bates re-recorded "Long, Slow Kisses", a track from his first album, and issued the re-recording as a single from his second album.
  • Jake Owen did the same with "Eight Second Ride": he recorded it on his first album, re-recorded it for the second album, and made the re-recording the second single from said album.
  • Joe Diffie completely re-recorded "John Deere Green" for the single release, giving it a "cleaner" instrumentation and slightly different vocal track while cutting down on some of the repeated lines. "Third Rock from the Sun" was also changed drastically for the radio edit: it omitted the digitized Lyrical Cold Open while also toning down the vocal reverb and removing a couple instrument tracks.
  • Tim McGraw:
    • McGraw re-recorded the vocal track for the radio version of "She Never Lets It Go to Her Heart", which also had the huge wall of backing vocals toned down on the chorus.
    • Much later, he sent an alternate mix of "Lookin' for That Girl" to radio which greatly reduced the amount of Auto-Tune.
  • Tracy Byrd re-recorded "The Keeper of the Stars" for the single version. The re-recording, which is a half-step lower than the album version (also how he sings it in concert), was also used in the music video.
  • Afro Celt Sound System has released several remixed versions (or just edited-for radio versions) of their songs (some remixed by other musicians, some remixed by themselves), generally as b-sides on singles. Their most dramatically changed song was possibly "Release": the original was a moody Celtic song over African percussion; Rollo & Sister Bliss remixed it into a clubby trance song, while Bi-Polar remixed it into a jazzy ska song. The remix album Pod collects ACSS's favorite of these remixes and adds a number of completely new mixes (with new instrumental parts recorded specifically for that album). And the albums Release and Seed both conclude with an instrumental remix of a vocal track.
  • In the mid-late 2000s, it's become a bit of a trend for Country Music singers to do alternate, acoustic versions of their hits. Most of the time, they're bonus tracks on the album or used for alternate versions of the corresponding music video. Other times, they're only available as downloads from either iTunes or the singer's website.
  • Faith Hill:
    • For no particular reason, Faith Hill re-recorded her 1996 single "You Can't Lose Me" exclusively for the video.
    • Much later, she rerecorded "The Way You Love Me" for pop radio with a heavier pop beat and Auto-Tuned backing vocals.
  • On his 1984 album He Thinks He's Ray Stevens, Ray Stevens re-recorded his 1962 single "Furthermore", changing from the goofy Motor Mouth inflections and muted trumpets of the 1960s to a more subdued country waltz. He also changed some of the lyrics, most notably the final verse, which was no longer identical to the first.
  • Neil Sedaka's first version of "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do", released in 1962, is fast and upbeat. The re-released 1975 version is a Softer and Slower Cover.
  • In 2012, Blake Shelton asked Michael Bublé, whose "Home" he covered in 2008, to do a Christmas-themed rewrite of "Home". Bublé obliged, and sang it with Blake on the latter's Christmas album Cheers, It's Christmas.
  • Machinae Supremacy recorded a cover of Britney Spears' "Gimme More" in their usual SiD-metal format.
  • Hank Williams Jr. re-wrote his 1982 hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" with Y2K-themed lyrics in late 1999. He gave it to Chad Brock, who sang it with guest vocals from Williams, John Anderson (whose part was cut from the radio edit), and George Jones. Williams re-recorded it again after 9/11 with patriotic lyrics under the title "America Will Survive".
  • Many of Zac Brown Band's singles were re-recorded for radio: "Chicken Fried", "Toes", and "All Alright" had solos abridged (and the former also had some organ notes dubbed in near the end). "Beautiful Drug" got an alternate mix that lessened the polarizing EDM/folktronica sound, and "Castaway" had the fadeout moved to the opening while toning down the bridge a bit.
  • Florida Georgia Line remixed "Cruise" for pop radio with a heavy dose of Auto-Tune and a guest verse from Nelly.
  • The Frozen Autumn re-recorded their 1995 song "Wait For Nothing" in 2010 with Arianna(Froxeanne) on vocals. Previously, in 1999, they produced a futurepop remix of "This Time", released on the Updated Re-release of Pale Awakening.
  • Mary Lambert's "She Keeps Me Warm" is basically to Macklemore's "Same Love" what Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind II" is to Jay-Z's "Empire State Of Mind": A singer expanding their guest appearance on a rap song into a song of their own. After "Same Love" became a hit, Macklemore fans started coming to her shows, so she decided to make her own version of the song so that she could play something they'd recognize.
  • Countless songs that have been hits in more than one genre are usually remixed for the other genre. For instance, many Taylor Swift songs have different mixes for country and pop, with the country mix usually being the one present on the album. Inverted with "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", where the pop mix is the one present on the album, and the country mix being much harder to find.
  • Kristin Hersh's 1994 version of “Your Ghost” was mainly based around her vocals and acoustic guitar playing - the only other instrumentation on the song was cello, guest backing vocals by Michael Stipe, and very minimal percussion. In 2004, she re-recorded it with her band 50 Foot Wave, using a louder, distorted-guitar-based arrangement.
  • The Morning Musume album The Best! ~Updated Morning Musume~ is entirely devoted to this.note  For instance, the bubbly, upbeat "I WISH" is reworked into a mellower tune, while "Aruiteru" goes in the opposite direction (for better or for worse.)
  • Midnight Resistance reworked "Second Skin", originally released in 2008, for his 2012 second album.
  • Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen remade his 1991 MOD track "Space Debris" Laserdance-style for the 2011 platform game Rochard.
  • Steven Stapleton of Nurse with Wound has a habit of resampling and re-arranging his work so often that what sounds like the same song can get released several times over a few years:
    • "Nylon Coverin' Body Smotherin'" and "Brained by falling masonry" are nearly identical and came out within months of each other.
    • "Registered Nurse" was re-arranged and re-released as "Registered Nurse (Second Coming)." Ditto with "Automating" and "Automating (again)".
    • "A short dip in the glory hole", "Brained"'s b-side, has seen a few edits.
    • The songs from Gyllensköld, Geijerstam, and I at Rydbergs were re-arranged for inclusion on Large Ladies with Cake in the Oven.
    • A Sucked Orange and Scrag were assembled from the same master tapes. Several pieces appear in both but are blended in a different way on each one.
    • The album Thunder Perfect Mind consists of two songs. "Cold" was re-edited several times, including for a single release as "Steel Dream March of the Metal Men". The beat midway through "Colder Still" resurfaced many times, including "Two Golden Microphones" from Rock'n Roll Station and half of the album Who Can I Turn to Stereo, amongst other places. Both songs appear in snippets throughout Rat Tapes One.
    • "Salt" gained additional samples of machinery and talking to become "Salt Marie Celeste". The piece would later be blended with Echo Poeme to become "Soundpooling #3".
    • Four whole albums revolved around the concept: Angry Eelectric Finger was issued in a "Raw Mix" form alongside three re-interpretations by friends of Stapleton: Jim O'Rourke, Cyclobe and irr. app. (ext.) Surprisingly, O'Rourke and irr. app.(ext.)'s versions sounded eerily similar, despite not hearing each other's work until they were finalized. The source material itself had similarities to "Salt".
    • A few pieces were edited from their transition from vinyl to cassette to CD over the years. The cassette version of "Great Balls of Fur", for example, contained an intro sampling a Johnson's Baby Lotion ad which didn't make it to vinyl or later CD pressings of the album it was from.
  • Shania Twain was one of the first country singers to remix her songs for pop radio and international airplay, usually by stripping the fiddles and steel in favor of more electric guitar and synth. But perhaps one of the most bizarre was "From This Moment On", which was originally a duet with Bryan White and redone for pop as a solo song.
  • Lonestar did this twice:
    • The pop mix of "Amazed" adds a Truck Driver's Gear Change that is not present in the original.
    • "Tell Her" was completely re-recorded for country radio. The radio version features a full string section and a more forceful vocal, compared to the more subdued, nearly acoustic version on the album. Although their Greatest Hits Album contains the radio edits of a few other songs, it kept the album version of "Tell Her", thus making the radio edit a Missing Episode.
  • Bowling for Soup has done at least five different versions of their song "Belgium", each in a different musical style.
  • Bon Jovi has released an entire album of acoustic rearrangements of songs from previous albums, entitled This Left Seems Right.
  • In 2019 'Frank Turner released an album called No Man's Land, where each song is a tribute to an undervalued woman. This included a new version of his previous song which fit the pattern, 'Silent Key' from 2015's album Positive Songs For Negative People, which was about Challenger teacher-pilot Christa Mc Auliffe. The words were unchanged but the music was slightly jauntier.
  • The radio edit of Pam Tillis' "Maybe It Was Memphis" replaced the electric guitar solo with a steel guitar solo. It also looped the chorus into a fadeout near the end to cover up another guitar solo.
  • The Sakanaction songs "Mikazuki Sunset" and "Inner World" were originally from Dutchman, members Ichiro Yamaguchi and Motoharu Iwadera's former band. When they formed Sakanaction, they rearranged both songs and included them in the band's debut album.
  • Madonna does it right in the same album, I'm Breathless. "Now I'm Following You (Part 2)" is a rearrangement of Part 1 so that it would sound like a 1990s-style dance song.
  • Decoded Feedback remixed "Birth of A Nation", originally released on their 1996 debut album Overdosing, as the "Rebirth Mix" on Combustion in 2005.
  • Suicide Commando remade his 1994 track "Time" as "Time (Rewind)" in 2013.
  • Judas Priest remade the Joan Baez Folk Music ballad "Diamonds and Rust" in their trademark Heavy Metal style.
  • The much-covered Garage Rock standard "Hey Joe" was usually performed at a frantic tempo, but the Jimi Hendrix version is slow and ominous.
  • Thomas Rhett re-recorded the vocal track for the single release of "Make Me Wanna".
  • Due to a nasty dispute with their record company over digital royalty rates, Def Leppard re-recorded and re-released three of their most popular tracks themselves. However, these versions are all but identical to the originals.
  • Country Music singer/soldier Keni Thomas's 2005 single "Gloryland" is a cover of an album cut by the band Blackhawk (and it features them on harmony vocals) but with some of the lyrics changed by Thomas to make them more personal.
  • Amorphis released Magic and Mayhem, re-recorded versions of their earlier songs with their then-new singer Tomi Joutsen.
  • Grace Jones' 1985 album Slave to the Rhythm is eight radically different variations of the same song. Producer Trevor Horn (of ZTT/Frankie Goes to Hollywood/The Buggles fame) just couldn't decide on which version to use, so all of them were released; the single featured an additional two variations of the song. Of note is that the single "Slave to the Rhythm" was renamed "Ladies and Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones" on the album proper, with a new Title Track being featured on the latter.
  • Chicago included a slightly remixed version of "What Kind Of Man Would I Be" (originally from Chicago 19)on their Greatest Hits 1982-1989 package. It became their last Top 10 hit, peaking at #5.
    • In 1986, they recorded a high-tech version of their Signature Song "25 Or 6 To 4" for Chicago 18. It stalled at #48 on the singles chart.
  • There are two versions of Blackbear's "I Needed You" with vastly different lyrics and tunes.
  • There are versions of "Sky's Still Blue" by Andrew Belle. One is the original and the other is a considerably Lighter and Softer version made for a commercial:
    Original version: You never hold onto what you believe in. I think I've lost you, tell me I'm dreaming. Why do wait to live 'till we begin to die? I made the incision. I begged and I borrowed. 'Traded my vision for heartbreak and sorrow. Now that I've found my side, well I realize I was born to go blind.
    Rearranged Version: A vision's a portrait, a palate of colors. We swim in an ocean with blindfolded lovers. And now that I've found my side, I finally realized that it was there the whole time.
  • Several versions of Trading Yesterday songs are reused on other albums. For example "She Is The Sunlight" has a version on More Than This and another on The Beauty And The Tragedy that is missing several lines of lyrics.
  • "All We Are" by OneRepublic comes in two versions. One has the lyrics "Time can tear you apart but it won't break anything that you are (you are)" while the slower version says "Lord I know I failed you time and again, but you and me are alright".
  • The Pixies began playing "Wave of Mutilation" in live gigs in a much slower and more sinister arrangement than the original studio album version, which ended up being very popular with fans. This slower take on the song was eventually recorded in a studio and released as a B-Side under the title "Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf Version)". There have been times where they've actually played the song in both arrangements in the course of the same live performance.
  • Easton Corbin's "Are You with Me" was an album cut on his second album, and in 2014, it was remixed by Belgian DJ Lost Frequencies to international dance success. Due to that version's success, he included the original version on his third album and sent a slightly faster-tempo remix as a single in 2016.
  • "Stay a Little Longer", the Breakthrough Hit of the country duo Brothers Osborne, was originally recorded on their self-titled EP in 2014. It was rearranged by producer Jay Joyce with new instrumentation and a longer guitar solo. This version became the single release (although the solo was trimmed for radio) and appeared on their debut album Pawn Shop.
  • Mike Posner's "I Took A Pill In Ibiza" was first released as a slow, acoustic guitar-based ballad. The better-known version of the song was a remix by production duo Seeb, who gave it an all-electronic, house-music-influenced arrangement. The Seeb remix also cuts the last verse of the song entirely.
  • Paul Hartnoll's "Please", a collaboration with Robert Smith originally released on the former's 2007 album The Ideal Condition, was re-recorded in 2015 under Hartnoll's new alias 8:58.
  • Marc Almond has rerecorded Soft Cell's breakthrough hit "Tainted Love" on more than one occasion. The final track on the two-disc edition of his 2017 retrospective "Hits and Pieces" is a big band version of the song which he recorded with Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, who also provided backing when Almond gave his first public performance since his brush with death in a motorcycle accident.
  • A lot of The Hamilton Mixtape is this to Hamilton, including "Wait For It", "Satisfied", "You'll Be Back", and "Helpless". "Say Yes To This" uses the same instrumental music as "Say No To This", but tells it from (presumably) Maria Reynold's perspective (as opposed to the original, which was from Hamilton's).
  • In 2005, Keith Anderson had the title track of his debut album Three Chord Country and American Rock & Roll remixed to feature Steven Tyler on guest vocals.
  • Hunter Hayes' "Everybody's Got Somebody but Me" was originally a solo song. But for the deluxe version of the corresponding album, he re-recorded it as a duet with Jason Mraz. This version was also released as a single.
  • The Ventures remade their breakthrough hit "Walk, Don't Run" in 1964 with a Surf Rock arrangement under the title "Walk, Don't Run '64". It became as big of a hit as the original was in 1960, making it the first instance of a band hitting the Top 10 twice with two different versions of the same song.
  • The single version of The Revivalists' "Wish I Knew You" is subtly different from the original, having the guitars mixed differently, an echo effect on David Shaw's vocals, and some more synthesizers, giving it more of a New Wave/Disco influence.
  • The single version of Babybird's "Cornershop" is more energetic and power chord-heavy than the original version, which has a more loungy sound.
  • Compare the original version of Panopticon's "...Speaking..." to the so-called "collapsed version". He turned a Black Metal track into a calm track using banjos as the only instrument.
  • Jean-Michel Jarre did this a couple of times, mostly for or after concerts.
    • Several songs were extended at live performances, e.g. to add a solo at the end, such as "Magnetic Fields 2" or "Rendez-vous 4".
    • Jarre himself did a Cover Version of his own "Zig-Zag" from the Les Granges Brûlées soundtrack under one of his many pseudonyms (which kind of made it obvious that the guy behind this pseudonym was in fact Jarre).
    • The Greatest Hits Album Images contains a heavily shortened edit of the Paris La Défense live version of "Equinoxe 4". What makes it particular is Christophe Deschamps' drum playing.
    • "Equinoxe 5" got a Not-Remix for the CD release of the album: The doubled string melody disappeared, the hi-hat doesn't disappear at certain points anymore, the FX were partly redone.
    • Jarre performed "Equinoxe 7" a.k.a. "Band In The Rain" on a barrel organ during a TV interview once. This became so popular that he'd play it on a barrel organ on stage at various concerts.
    • "Magnetic Fields 2" got the first bits of a new melody at Destination Docklands, it was retooled to the new melody entirely at Paris La Défense, and Images included a new studio version based on the La Défense recording.
    • Of all changes done to "Magnetic Fields 2" for live performances, the one for the 1997 Oxygène Arena Tour was the most drastic: It was slowed down to a dancefloor tempo and re-arranged to something trance-like. This didn't stick, though.
    • The "Overture" of The Concerts In China is actually "Magnetic Fields 1 Part 1" at half speed with a few additions.
    • "Orient Express" from the same album was re-recorded entirely for Images.
    • "Souvenir Of China" got a synth solo at Paris La Défense, a guitar solo at the Concert pour la tolérance, a new synth solo at the Oxygène Arena Tour and a full orchestral backing during the first half of the 2000s, starting with The Twelve Dreams Of The Sun.
    • Zoolook and Rendez-vous contain snippets from songs Jarre had written for French singers in The '70s as well as material taken over from his one-copy album Music For Supermarkets.
    • Zoolook is another interesting case: Only a very few CDs were originally pressed with the same music as the vinyl release. The actual CD release contains remixes of both the title track and "Zoolookologie". For the 24-bit remastered editions, the original versions returned.
    • Like "Souvenir Of China", "Rendez-vous 2" got an orchestral treatment at The Twelve Dreams Of The Sun. At the same time, it was shortened to what could usually be found on official live releases (barring the extreme edit from the La Défense VHS tape).
    • The title track from Revolutions was rearranged for Paris La Défense to be accompanied by an actual Arab string orchestra and a new singer. This required an entirely new intro, gave the song some new string parts all over, and a new title: "Revolution, Revolutions". As for the original recording, since Jarre didn't obtain the rights on the Ney intro, he isn't allowed to include it on the album anymore. It has been replaced with "Revolution, Revolutions" from La Défense on all 24-bit remastered releases.
    • "Eldorado", first released on Images, was reworked for the 1992 multimedia show Legends Of The Lost City with longer breaks in the vocal parts and a new ending.
    • The 1995 Concert pour la tolérance contains an unexpected new version of the third movement from the summer of Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons — as Heavy Metal.note  It returned at a few occasions in the 2000s, now re-arranged as a house/metal fusion.
    • While The Twelve Dreams Of The Sun also served as a showcase for Jarre's upcoming album Metamorphoses, the songs had to be adapted to the live situation more or less. That said, "Gloria, Lonely Boy" was rearranged to be played only by the orchestra.
    • The "Hymn To Acropolis" from the Acropolis concert is ever-so-barely recognizable as a thoroughly retooled "Give Me A Sign" from Metamorphoses.
    • The Aero concert included "Light My Sky" which is a rearranged version of "Tout Est Bleu" from Metamorphoses.
    • Except for two brand-new songs, the album Aero consists of half-remakes of older material — plus the title track which is actually a heavily reworked "Je me souviens" from Metamorphoses.
    • The Orchestral Jean-Michel Jarre is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: an official Greatest Hits Compilation played by an orchestra.
    • For the 30th anniversary of Oxygène, Jarre re-recorded the whole album. Then he took three co-musicians and a whole lot of mostly vintage gear to a sound stage in Belgium and redid it yet again, this time in front of cameras and with three new pieces woven in, the "Variations".
  • HIM are an example of an artist who would rearrange a song and give the result a new title. Their early song "Stigmata Diaboli" eventually morphed into the B-side "Sigillum Diaboli", and there's also "One Last Time" which gave way to "The 9th Circle (OLT)"note .
  • Robert Smith and Quartet Voluté recorded a string quartet version of The Cure's "Pictures Of You" for the soundtrack to the documentary Dead Good.
  • Charli XCX had an unusually roundabout case with a song recorded as "Blame It On Your Love". The original demo (not publicly released, but was known through leaks circa 2017) was a perfectly straightforward pop song you could hear on the radio, but its proper release came in the form of "Track 10" on her Pop 2 mixtape, preserving the vocals but rearranged into a far more avant-garde and glitched-out ballad. With her 2019 album Charli, however, "Blame It On Your Love" was given another go and released as a finished version of the original demo, effectively making it an unarrangement.
  • A major offender in Japanese rock scene is the Hard Rock duo B'z:
    • Various of their past hits usually have rearranged versions (since remixes to remake the song from scratch) in newer albums and even they translated some of them into English. The most known case is the song "Samayoeru Aoi Dangan", remade completely, sung in English, and renamed as "Into Free - Dangan", used as part of the OST of Capcom's Dragon's Dogma.
    • Some of the singles released exclusively for the OST as "Shoudou" and "Friction" obtained reversions with more guitars in some of their albums. For example, this is the original version of Burnout Dominator/Paradise's "Friction" and this is the -LAP 2- version from 2007's Action album.
    • "Bad Communication," their first big hit and one of their best known, has no less than four cases of this after the 1989 original: the “E.Style” English version (appearing on their 1990 mini-album Wicked Beat), the “000-18” unplugged version with a more bluesy sound (on 1995’s Loose), a second edited “E.Style” version with a different arrangement (on the 1998 compilation B’z The Best PLEASURE), and an “Ultra Pleasure” version replacing the original synth backing with a much harder sound emphasizing Tak Matsumoto’s guitar work (on the 2008 compilation B’z The Best ULTRA PLEASURE). The “Ultra Pleasure” version was especially welcomed by B’z fans, as the original synth-heavy version is considered a Black Sheep Hit by some. It also didn’t help that Sony, the current rights holder of most of the group’s early catalog, is very hesitant to license the original version to their longtime label and management firm Being.
  • In 2017, Tracy Bonham released Modern Burdens, a track-by-track rearrangement of her 1996 debut The Burdens Of Being Upright (plus one new song, "Free"). Sometimes both the lyrics and music are changed - for instance, not only is Signature Song "Mother Mother" changed from Alternative Rock to blues rock, the second verse adds contemporary political references (e.g. climate change and Donald Trump).
  • For Waterparks, Entertainment 2019 and Double Dare 2019 are single track mashups of the original Double Dare and Entertainment albums. Recorded over the course of four days, with two days dedicated to each, these were made out of necessity; while Equal Vision now owns the album versions of Double Dare and Entertainment, Waterparks owns the 2019 versions. The tracks reorder the song order, cherrypick lyrics from certain songs with varying emphasis (with songs like "11:11" and "Stupid For You" barely having any at all), clearer vocals, vocal delivery that either differs from or is surprisingly near 1:1 with the original, and a production approach that brings the content more in line with the band's third album, FANDOM.
  • Casket Girls' The Piano Album is a Concept Album in that it features piano as the lead instrument (the band usually uses synthesizers and drum machines) - as bonus tracks, it includes new versions of two songs from their previous album, "Same Side" and "The Chase", rearranged for piano and vocals.
  • Demi Lovato released an "emo remix" of "I Love Me", which used the same vocal track but set it to emo/Pop Punk style electric guitars and live drums instead of the synthesizers and drum machines of the original version. This was later followed up with REVAMPED, an album consisting of "rock versions" of ten of the singer's previous pop hits.
  • Robert Pollard gave the defunct band Phantom Tollbooth a backhanded compliment by saying they could have "ruled the world" if he were their frontman - they took him up on it by sending him instrumental versions of songs from their last album, Power Toys, to do what he pleased with them. The album was remade with an altered track listing along with new vocals, lyrics, melodies, and song titles added by Pollard, under the title Beard Of Lightning.
  • Fates Warning's 1995 best-of album Chasing Time included two new songs, one of which ("Circles") was a reworking of "Shelter Me" from Inside Out with revised lyrics.
  • Kim Wilde re-recorded "You Keep Me Hangin' On" with Nena, and "Kids in America" with Charlotte Hatherley, both on her 2006 album Never Say Never.
  • The Human League's 1978 debut single, "Being Boiled", was updated for their second album, Travelogue, in 1980.
  • In 1968, Barbara Acklin recorded "Am I the Same Girl?", which would eventually become better known for its 1992 cover by Swing Out Sister... that is, better known in its lyrical form. However, her producer Carl Davis decided to strip out her vocal track and replace it with a piano track by a session musician. He titled the instrumental version "Soulful Strut", crediting it to Young-Holt Unlimited (another act he worked with), and released it in November 1968. By the time Acklin's song was released in February 1969, "Soulful Strut" was certified as a gold record in the US, topping out at #3 on the Hot 100.
  • Ashnikko reworked "Daisy" as "Daisy 2.0" with an added feature by Hatsune Miku. Aside from Miku getting her own verse and doing backing vocals, the tempo is made faster and more danceable, and the last verse is also entirely rewritten.
  • When Peterpan rename themselves to Noah, they rearrange almost all Peterpan songs both to give them updated arrangement and to make sure they can be called Noah songs.
  • Haken's extended play Restoration consists of extensively rearranged versions of three songs off their demo Enter the 5th Dimension. According to guitarist Charlie Griffiths, the band felt that just re-recording the tracks would be dishonest, as half of the lineup at the time (including Griffiths himself) did not play on the demo, and the reworked versions are now the definitive ones in the band's eyes.
  • KMFDM rearranged "Kickin' Ass" and "Conillon", originally from What Do You Know, Deutschland, as "Thumb Thumb" and "Loving Can Be An Art", respectively, on UAIOE.
  • For a large part of Paul Simon's live career he would re-arrange his older songs to suit the style of his most recent album. Simon and Garfunkel's "Concert in Central Park" sounds a lot like "Still Crazy After All These Years", and his solo record "Paul Simon's Concert in the Park" sounds a lot like "Graceland" and "Rhythm of the Saints". The biggest exception was The Sound of Silence, which he tended to do acoustically, by himself. Eventually, he went back to playing his old songs closer to how they originally were.
  • Scott Weiland-fronted group Magnificent Bastards wrote the song "Mockingbird Girl" for the Tank Girl soundtrack, then 3 years later Scott did his own version of the song for his solo album 12 Bar Blues. While the Magnificent Bastards version is straightforward Alternative Rock, Scott's version adds a drum machine and some psychedelic effects in keeping with the more eclectic, experimental feel of the album. It also has an extended ending with some additional lyrics, stretching the song out from 3 and a half minutes to just over 5.
  • tool: The live album Salival includes a few live versions of existing Tool songs. The most noticeably rearranged song is "Pushit," which is performed in a much more slow and mournful manner in comparison to the colder and angrier original. The track even includes singer Maynard James Keenan explaining that the song is being approached "from a new angle" and "in a different light."
    • "Intermission", from Aenima, is a brief version of "Jimmy" from the same album In the Style of an easy listening electric organ jingle - it then abruptly segues into the heavy electric guitar riff of "Jimmy" itself for the sake of Mood Whiplash.
  • Former Livin' Joy singer Janice Robinson re-recorded their 1995 Breakthrough Hit "Dreamer" with LODATO in 2022.
  • Seal did a solo re-recording of Adamski's 1990 hit "Killer", in which he co-wrote and was the featured artist for his 1991 debut Self-Titled Album. Unlike the original, which is an acid house song, the re-recording leans towards a dance-rock sound along with extra lyrics that wasn't included in the original version.
  • "Outside" by Staind was originally released in a live acoustic version (actually performed by Aaron Lewis solo with backing vocals by Fred Durst) on The Family Values Tour 1999, a companion album to the rock and hip hop tour of the same name. In a reversal of the Unplugged Version trope, when the acoustic version proved to be a hit, they then released an electric full band version on their next album, Break The Cycle.
  • Lucky Pierre's 1988 EP Communiqué was New Wave Music. Lead vocalist Kevin McMahon took three of its songs note  with him to his next project Prick, giving them all makeovers as unusually poppy Industrial Metal on the self-titled 1995 album. Trent Reznor was involved in both releases - contributing saxophone and backing vocals on the Communiqué' EP, and producing the rearranged versions on Prick.
  • On their second album, Tyranny and Mutation, Blue Öyster Cult recorded a new version of "I'm on the Lamb but I Ain't No Sheep" (from Blue Öyster Cult). The new version was titled "The Red and the Black". It had mostly the same lyrics, but was different musically, and was a minute longer.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Bret Hart: His 1988-1997 theme "Hart Beat," which was rescored and evolved into "Hart Attack," but beneath the surface remained the same theme until his final match (the infamous Montreal Screwjob).
  • Christian's theme "Just Close Your Eyes" by Story Of The Year, was originally performed by Waterproof Blonde.
  • And when Christian's best buddy Edge adopted Alter Bridge's "Metalingus", it was literally rearranged. The rapid-fire heavier drum/guitar riff that ends the song on the album forms the beginning of Edge's entrance music before jumping back to the iconic "On this day...!" refrain, which first occurs about 55 seconds into the actual song.
  • After leaving Legacy, Cody Rhodes got the theme song "Smoke and Mirrors". A slower, darker, more morose, mostly instrumental version was used during his "ugly" phase. Upon becoming Stardust, he gained the theme tune "Written in the Stars"; a more whimsical, stringed interpretation following the same chord structure.
  • The Corre theme song, "End of Days" was tweaked many times in their 6 months of existence.
  • Dolph Ziggler's first solo theme song was "I am Perfection" by Cage 9. This was later covered by Downstait, then reworked into "Here to Show the World", also by Downstait.
  • Kurt Angle's theme in the WWF/WWE took a slight turn around 2006 with his Heel–Face Turn. By this time, it was practically obliged for people to chant "You suck!" during a two-note solo melody in his song. The newer version edited this portion out, so as to keep people from chanting it regardless of his Face turn.
    • Ironically, the chants were originally just his name, with the crowd singing "Angle!" along with the music, inspired by an Edge and Christian bit where they played his theme on a kazoo. It wasn't until later that it turned into "You suck!" (also thanks to Edge) You'd think the crowd would just go back to chanting his name.
    • After the Invasion, Kurt briefly used a metal remix of his theme.
  • During Jacques Rougeau's run as rogue lawman The Mountie, he used the narcissist "I'm the Mountie!" (a heel marching tune) as his entrance theme. When he began teaming with Pierre Oulette as The Quebecers in 1993, the theme was reworked to "We're Not the Mounties," with Rougeau and Oulette re-recording the theme as a duet. The instrumentation was slightly re-worked, but the only changes to the lyrics were the title line and first-person pronouns (e.g., I, my) were made plural (we and our, respectively).
  • The Rock's theme continually evolved from when he entered the WWF as Rocky Maivia; first becoming more bluesy as he joined The Nation, then becoming more percussion-heavy and adding an electric guitar track after his Heel–Face Turn, and becoming more elaborate as he became a bigger and bigger star.
    • Basically, based off his signature line "If you smeeeellllllll .... what the Rock ... is ... cookin'!"
    • It has been reworked many times and had a one-time-only rap version by Method Man.
    • The development and evolution of the theme is discussed by Jim Johnson in an official Youtube Video
  • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's iconic in-house music was remixed with lyrics by Disturbed when he made his highly publicized return in September 2000, all up until July 2001, when he made an ill-fated heel turn and used a one-time-only slowed-down version. Afterwards he used a theme that vaguely sounded like H-Blockx's "Oh, Hell Yeah" until the end of the Invasion.
  • Triple H's theme song, "The Game" by Motörhead has gone through several remixes, starting off as the instrumental "Higher Brain Pattern", gaining lyrics from Chris Warren as "My Time", then finally achieving its current form after Motörhead covered it. Drowning Pool also did a cover that's rarely used. A version with the music of "My Time" and the lyrics of "The Game" appeared on WWE Anthology, disc 3.
  • Vince McMahon's theme "No Chance" briefly was changed in 1999 to a much darker, sinister-sounding version during the Corporate Ministry storyline, to get the idea over that the Ministry's wrestlers were a much more dire threat.
  • After almost 20 years of gradual remixing and added levels of epic, the The Undertaker's theme is ultimately a version of Chopin's Funeral March.
  • Lita's theme "Just Feels Right" was transposed in another key and gained lyrics from Boy Hits Car as "LoveFuryPassionEnergy".

    Radio 
  • American Country Countdown:
    • The 1978 opening and closing theme, "My Kind of Country," had an electric guitar added to the original track in the summer of 1982.
    • The 1986 opening theme was redone in 1989; the 1984 hour-open theme, retained when the 1986 music cue package was implemented, was redone in 1989.
  • Radio 4's PM has a business news section called "Upshares, Downshares". Every week, it's introduced by a different arrangement of the Upstairs Downstairs theme, many of them sent in by listeners.
  • The theme music to NPR's All Things Considered news program has had at least 4 different arrangements over the years. Morning Edition has had at least 2 arrangements.
  • The CBS radio top-of-the-hour news sounder was rearranged with an orchestral sound at some point in the 2000s.

    Sports 
  • In the 2010s, Fox introduced a marching band rearrangement of the NFL on Fox theme music for college football broadcasts.
  • After losing the U.S. Open golf tournament to Fox, NBC moved the Yanni-composed theme it had used for the event to its coverage of the Open Championship, but not without adding bagpipes to the arrangement.

    Theatre 
  • Played for Drama in Gypsy, where "Let Me Entertain You," the song which Baby June sang in vaudeville, becomes Gypsy Rose Lee's song in her first burlesque debut. (The burlesque band is said to be provided with the exact same arrangements used earlier; this is obviously not actually true.)
  • Also used within the show of Dreamgirls to represent two songs being Covered Up: Jimmy and the Dreamettes' exuberant version of "Cadillac Car" is replaced by a practically easy-listening version by Dave and the Sweethearts, while Effie's soulful "One Night Only" vies with Deena and the Dreams' disco version.
  • Cirque du Soleil's concert tour Delirium merged this with Rewritten Pop Version for a set list of songs derived from most of the shows from Saltimbanco through Varekai.
  • In addition to the many cut songs, the songs of Vanities: A New Musical were often rearranged, shortened, extended, or had their lyrics changed slightly between productions, e.g. the middle verse of "I Can't Imagine" and the first verse of "An Organized Life 1968" were cut; "Let Life Happen" was rearranged when it was moved to where "We're Gonna Be Ok (Feelin' Sunny)" used to be; "In The Same Place" became "The Same Old Music"; "Counterpoint", a repetitive short reprise of "I Can't Imagine", was turned into a longer Dark Reprise titled "The Argument"; "Friendship Isn't What It Used to Be", originally a solo by Kathy, was rewritten as a trio, and its bridge completely reworked; and "Looking Good" had its final chorus extended and a short reprise of "Setting Your Sights" added as an outro.
    • This was also done in-show with the scene intro song("Hey There, Beautiful", "Setting Your Sights", or "Mystery", depending on the production) as well as "An Organized Life" (and "Nothing Like A Friend" in the original Theatreworks run), for each scene.
  • The 2011 stage adaptation of Aladdin uses the full original lyrics of "Arabian Nights", and also restores the previously unused reprises of that song.
  • The songs in Jersey Boys are subtly rearranged from the original versions by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Most of the songs are slightly faster, with a different instrument mix and a verse cut out so they can all fit in a two-hour musical.
  • The Cat and the Fiddle has an in-universe example, where Shirley helps Victor rearrange his waltz song "One Moment Alone" into Common Time.

    Video Games 

    Web Animation 
  • The theme found in the earlier episodes of Robotbox and Cactus develops in steps between episodes, gaining a different synth sound and then a vibraslap.

    Web Original 
  • Atop the Fourth Wall introduced its theme song on the Secret Defenders #10 episode (June 16, 2009). Starting with the Maximum Clonage episode (October 26), it took on its current arrangement, with fuller orchestration, a stronger vocal track, and overall better production. The theme song would get overhauled years later with Spider-Man: Sins Past in 2020 and become the new theme in 2021 in order to remove lyrics that attacked comic creators (a former habit of Linkara's that he now considers an Old Shame).
  • The Guild started out with an entirely synthesized instrumental theme song - fitting the premise of the show, it sounded like something out of an MMORPG Loading Screen. By season five it got some fuller orchestration, including an electric guitar playing the lead melody instead of the synthesizers. The simpler version of the theme was reprised at the end of the very last episode to further emphasize a use of Book Ends dialogue.

    Western Animation 
  • American Dragon: Jake Long got a new version of the Theme Tune to go with the Art Shift in Season 2. The original version was sort of light and mystical-sounding. The Season 2 rearrangement was full of crunchy guitar and was definitely made to sound more like rock.
  • The original Ben 10's pop-rock theme song gets a hard rock remix in Ben 10: Race Against Time, its live-action TV movie.
    • The opening theme to its first Sequel Series, Ben 10: Alien Force, is a mostly new tune, but threaded through it is an instrumental arrangement of the first two sung lines from the original series' theme song.
  • Big City Greens had its Instrumental Theme Tune redone in Season 3B to reflect the Greens moving back to the country. The original had a light pop sound with country twang, while the rearrangement makes it purely country with more fiddles and horn sounds, and all vocalizations (the whistling and count off) were replaced with appropriate sound effects like a Jew's harp.
  • The Simpsons:
    • The theme has been rearranged countless times in the series, to the point where it's almost a Running Gag. It's mostly during the closing credits, within the body of an episode, or on special episodes. There have only been three versions of the main opening theme: the original Danny Elfman arrangement, another Elfman arrangement for season 2, and the Alf Clausen arrangement from season 3 onward.
      • Lisa's sax solo does change from week to week, however, and the couch gag often features different music.
    • Green Day perform their own version for The Simpsons Movie. Their cover has a vocal, which appears on the teleprompter as "DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH..."
  • South Park:
    • There have been five versions (plus a few "sub-versions") of the South Park theme. The first appeared only in the original (unaired) version of "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe." The second version has two sub-versions. The first sub-version aired in the first two seasons, and the second (which had the same backing track but was re-sung) aired in Season 3 and during the first half of Season 4. The third version aired during the second half of Season 4 and all of Season 5. The fourth version aired from Season 6 to the middle of Season 10 and also has two sub-versions (the first, heard only in S6, has Timmy reciting Kenny's lines - while the second brings back Kenny). While the current version has aired since the second half of Season 10.
    • The show's closing credits theme (which it has used throughout its entire run) is an instrumental rendition of the first version of its main theme.
  • Transformers always keep the same theme tune and re-arrange it, generally depending on which musical style is popular with children - compare the hair metal-style theme from The Transformers: The Movie to the rap-inspired theme from Transformers: Cybertron.
  • Kim Possible rearranged the theme into a parody of James Bond themes for Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama.
  • Noddy In Toyland uses a remixed version of the theme to Chorion's earlier Noddy production, Make Way For Noddy.
  • The final episode of Drawn Together featured many of the show's songs being performed in radically different styles from their previous versions. (For instance, the Disney-esque ballad "Black Chick's Tongue" was performed in a hard rock style, while the Ling-Ling battle theme was transformed into a sultry jazz number.) The show was also prone to rearranging its theme song to suit the needs of certain episodes; for instance, a Tejano-style version of the theme was used for an episode that took place in Mexico.
  • The theme of Batman: The Animated Series got a few special remixes in Batman Beyond, at various times performed by a full orchestra, howling electric guitars; these tended to happen at significant moments, like the times Bruce actually got involved.
  • Extreme Ghostbusters turns the franchise's famous theme song into a sinister Alternative Rock number, in keeping with the series' Darker and Edgier mood.
  • In the first season of The Raccoons, the ending theme "Run With Us" was sung by Steve Lunt, but in all subsequent seasons, it was performed by Lisa Lougheed (Lisa Raccoon) with additional lyrics (at least 1 Season 2 episode had a partly-instrumental version of the theme with some characters discussing about something, with the chorus lyrics intact).
  • In the Discworld novel Soul Music, Buddy follows up playing his beautiful, haunting harp masterwork "Sioni Bod Da" by grabbing his guitar and playing a Music With Rocks version of the same piece. The Animated Adaptation's "The Messenger" captures this beautifully.
  • Virtually all of the music in Inspector Gadget is the theme song rescored to match the musical style of the part of the world that episode takes place in.
  • Steven Universe began using a different version of its theme song (with new animation) early in Season 2, starting with a short revealing the full lyrics of the song. (International broadcast still use the original opening.)
  • For a scene in Justice League Unlimited where Batman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman (along with more era-appropriate heroes like Jonah Hex) are riding through the Wild West on horses on their way to the lair of the episode's Big Bad, a Western-ised version of the theme music from the original Justice League plays.
  • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! had its theme redone in season two to a more bubblegum pop arrangement.
  • When Alvin and the Chipmunks switched from Ruby-Spears to Murakami-Wolf-Swenson in its sixth season (later to DiC Entertainment that same year), a re-mixed version of the theme song was used for the main titles (a completely new instrumental theme was used for the end titles).
  • Teen Titans:
    • The original series has two versions of the theme song: The English version for "serious" episodes, and the Japanese version for "silly" episodes. They got this mixed up with the episode "Nevermore", the one about Raven's daddy issues, which was supposed to be a serious episode but used the silly theme by mistake.
    • Teen Titans Go! and the DC Nation shorts that inspired it each have a theme based on the original. Go! specifically boasts a remix by Mix Master Mike, best known for his work with the Beastie Boys. How appropriate given that one of the Titans is named Beast Boy...
  • A slightly different version of the Daria theme song "You're Standing On My Neck" played in the first four episodes (And a few season one episodes after that) of the series, though it was still performed by Splendora, who performed the standard version of the theme, and was almost the same as the standard version instrumental-wise. It's possible that this "first version" was a demo.
  • For the second season onward, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers featured a brand new opening with several new clips that also replaced its synth tune theme song with a brand new pop version (based on the full-length edition of the theme recorded by the Jets). Interestingly enough, some later episodes would still use the original opening but with the new remixed song. And just to make things more confusing, some VHS tapes from the early 90's also featured the show's second opening but with the original mix of the song. The original mix was also featured on some read-along cassette tapes, and it can still be seen in most of the first season episodes on the first volume of the show's DVD release.
  • A lot of people don't know this, but the opening to Darkwing Duck is a rearranged version! Before the show premiered in syndication in the fall of 1991, the Disney Channel aired it on weekend mornings over the preceding spring and summer. The opening for those airings, as seen here featured a heavy guitar riff, no sax in the background, and some completely different singers. Unlike the case for Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers, the original arrangement, has never been used again in any reruns, home media or any other material, suggesting the original masters of it may have been lost.
  • Similarly The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh used a rerecorded version of the main theme from Season Two onwards. Interestingly with this change, the end credits, originally using a short orchestral remix of the opening, were lengthened to just use a full, mostly instrumental version of the rerecorded opening, subverting the trope. Some airings or VHS releases also reveal other variations, such as end credits with the Season One opening instrumental, and a version of the opening sung by Jim Cummings (who also voices Pooh).
  • The Looney Tunes series has done this so many times with "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" and "Merrily We Roll Along" that finding and listing all of the different versions would probably take forever.
  • The theme song to the 2006 revival of Biker Mice from Mars is a remix of the theme song of the original 1993 series.
  • Wabbit kept the same lyrics to the Theme Tune but rearranged the song itself from jazz to country halfway through season one.
  • VeggieTales went through this twice:
    • The first alteration of the theme song first appeared on "Pistachio: The Little Boy That Woodn't". The theme had all the characters sing the entire theme song rather than Bob doing the first verse and a chorus doing the rest. It also removed the dialogue between Bob and Larry at the beginning for a tuba solo by Larry and also had one of the verses being cut.
    • The second alteration of the theme song appeared on videos starting with "Noah's Ark" and had Bob sing the first verse, but kept the same vocals for the last few verses from the first alteration.
  • Animaniacs went through this a couple of times. The first was the "While Bill Clinton plays the sax" verse. It was changed twice as a backup lyric in case Clinton didn't win the '96 Election. The second was Pinky & the Brain's verse, since their segments for the most part became its own series, the verse was replaced with a verse about the Warners' supporting castnote .
    • When the show was rebooted, the song was changed heavily - the lyric "Dot is cute" is changed to "Dot has wit", the "While Bill Clinton plays the sax" is changed to "Our careers have made comebacks", and while Pinky and the Brain return to their old verse, everything after that is changed.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) had a few changes. The first not only replaced the ninja code lyrics with a character introduction but as Shredder was defeated, we're shown the Turtles on the perch Shredder's usually on with Michaelangelo dancing and holding Shredder's helmet, proclaiming "We shredded Shredder!" It changed again when Karai took over, returning the original "Watch out for Shredder!", but with Karai saying it.
  • DuckTales:
  • The theme music of The Octonauts and the Great Swamp Search was re-arranged with the same basic tune but with eastern-sounding instruments.
  • The theme song of Doc McStuffins was given a new, much jazzier arrangement with altered lyrics and a new vocalist when the Toy Hospital was introduced.
  • The third season of Amphibia replaces the main strings in the show's theme song with a drum machine, with the more electronic sound being meant to emphasize the setting change from the fantasy world of Amphibia to modern-day Los Angeles.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks changed up its theme song for season 2 to be more symphonic after the positive reaction to such music in the episode "Crisis Point".
  • The Flintstones:
    • The Primetime Specials (1980-81) use the same song as the original show but with completely different lyrics to accommodate the new elements, including the Frankenstone family.
    • For The Flintstone Comedy Show (the show that aired around the same time), the original song is used for the opening, though slightly extended to include the Frankenstones' Leitmotif, with some lines of lyrics replaced with an instrumental part and "gay" replaced with "great".


 
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Kim Possible: So The Drama

In a homage to James Bond movies, the opening of the Kim Possible DCOM consists of artistic action shots from the series while set to a remix version of the show's theme.

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