History Main / RecycledLyrics

* The CutSong "The House of Marcus Lycus" from ''Theatre/AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum'' used "side by side by side" to refer to having ALadyOnEachArm (namely, the Gemini). Music/StephenSondheim made this phrase the title of a song in ''Theatre/{{Company}}''.

** "So to Be One of Us" (from the ''[[Disney/PeterPan Return to Neverland]]'' soundtrack:) "We swing on limbs of trees / Till we wake up the bees..."

* Some of the the lyrics from the song "Something There" from ''Disney/BeautyandtheBeast'' were actually reused from the earlier song "Belle."

* Music/FaithNoMore's "Last Cup Of Sorrow" shares the lyric "raise it up and let's propose a toast / to the thing that hurts you most" with "Bloody Mary", an early Music/MrBungle demo - Creator/MikePatton wrote the lyrics to both songs.

** "Living / live in the shadows of your song." (''Ready to Start'', ''Deep Blue'' and ''Suburban War''.)

** Slightly modified version: ''[[Music/TheSuburbs The Suburbs]]'' opens with "In the suburbs I / I learned to drive / And they told me we'd never survive / So grab your mother's keys, we're leaving," whereas the slower, sadder ''Suburban War'' has as its second verse a dark reprise of this: "In the suburbs I / I learned to drive / And you told me we would never survive / So grab your mother's keys, we leave tonight."

* Music/WASP's album ''The Headless Children'' contains a B-side entitled "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Some of the lyrics and the melody would later form the basis of "The Gypsy Meets the Boy" from ''The Crimson Idol''.

* The CutSong "The House of Marcus Lycus" from ''Theatre/AFunnyThingHappenedOnTheWayToTheForum'' used "side by side by side" to refer to having ALadyOnEachArm (namely, the Gemini). Creator/StephenSondheim made this phrase the title of a song in ''Theatre/{{Company}}''.

* Tony Iommi and Phil Anselmo wrote a song called "Inversion Of The Saviors" for the latter's album ''Iommi'', but ultimately a different Iommi/Anselmo collaboration ended up on the album instead. Anselmo reused a small portion of the lyrics in the {{Music/Down}} song "Steeple".

** The Gregg Alexander demo track "You're Beautiful (Like No One Before)" leaked in the 2000s, and was rewritten into "Intimidated By You" for the "Begin Again" soundtrack.

* ''Theatre/AnnieGetYourGun'' had a CutSong titled "Something Bad's Gonna Happen," which had in the second part of its chorus: "I can hear people singing though there's no one there / I smell orange blossoms through the trees are bare." The same lines, minus a few syllables, became the germ of "You're Just In Love" from ''Call Me Madam''.

** "Little Drum Machine Boy" and "Hot Wax" both feature the lyric "I get down, I get down, I get down all the way" delivered in roughly the same cadence as "Jingle Bells". It made more sense for him to reference a Christmas standard in the former, since it was released as part of Christmas benefit album ''Just Say Noel''.

* Music/{{Pixies}} recycle 'A white moon's hot, the other side's not' from "Brick Is Red" for 'when one side's hot, the other side of the moon is not' in "All Over The World", two albums later. And the chorus from early versions of "Subbacultcha" (We're having fu-un!) was recycled for "Distance Equals Rate Times Time"[[note]]which is a line from Space (I Believe In) - "now it occurred to me as he drove away, D equals R times T[[/note]] (from looking into the su-un!).

* Music/ArcadeFire's third album, ''[[Music/TheSuburbsAlbum The Suburbs]]'', does this for multiple phrases, and to great effect, including (but not limited to):

** Slightly modified version: ''[[Music/TheSuburbsAlbum The Suburbs]]'' opens with "In the suburbs I / I learned to drive / And they told me we'd never survive / So grab your mother's keys, we're leaving," whereas the slower, sadder ''Suburban War'' has as its second verse a dark reprise of this: "In the suburbs I / I learned to drive / And you told me we would never survive / So grab your mother's keys, we leave tonight."

* Music/ArcadeFire's third album, ''The Suburbs'', does this for multiple phrases, and to great effect, including (but not limited to):

** Slightly modified version: ''The Suburbs'' opens with "In the suburbs I / I learned to drive / And they told me we'd never survive / So grab your mother's keys, we're leaving," whereas the slower, sadder ''Suburban War'' has as its second verse a dark reprise of this: "In the suburbs I / I learned to drive / And you told me we would never survive / So grab your mother's keys, we leave tonight."

* Music/{{Radiohead}} included the line "I don't know why I feel so tongue-tied / I don't know why I feel so skinned alive." in two songs. The first to use it was "Cuttooth," a popular B-side to their album ''Music/{{Amnesiac}}''; the second song, "Myxomatosis," is on ''Hail to the Thief'', released after ''Amnesiac''.

** "How to Disappear Completely" has "I'm not here, this isn't happening," which will be followed up by "This is really happening," in "Idioteque."

* Music/TheBeatles' "Glass Onion" is filled with [[SongOfSongTitles shout outs to other songs of theirs:]]
** I told you about strawberry fields...
** I told you about the walrus and me, man...
** Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet, yeah...
** I told you about the fool on the hill...
** Fixing a hole in the ocean...

* Music/FrankZappa was very fond of this, as part of what he called "conceptual continuity." Common examples in his lyrics include references to poodles named Fido, muffins, the mythical groupie/singer Suzy Creamcheese, and the term "conceptual continuity" itself. Of course, he started his career with what some consider to be the first concept album ever. Note that Suzy even has her own article on [[http://en.wikpedia.org/wiki/Suzy_Creamcheese the other Wiki]].

** ''Ill Communication'' has two {{Album Title Drop}}s: Both "Sure Shot" and "Get It Together" feature the line "Like Ma Bell, I got the ill communications".

* Music/ManuChao does this all the time.

** "Love Is The Seventh Wave" (from the album ''The Dream of the Blue Turtles'') has phrases from "Every Breath You Take" (which he performed with his old band ThePolice).

** "Sexx Laws" and "Debra" both have the line "I'm a full grown man but I'm not afraid to cry", although this seems to be more of a CallBack because one's the first song on ''Midnite Vultures'' and the other is the last.
** There was a time when Beck was inordinately fond of the lyric "Yellow cat layin' flat on the road" - "Corvette Bummer" and "Ziplock Bag" both feature this exact line, while in "The Spirit Moves Me", it's a "phony lady" that's "layin' flat on the road" instead. It's probably not a coincidence that "Corvette Bummer" also mentions "a ziplock bag". All three of these songs came out in 1994.
*** Beck sampled an early unreleased folk song of his in "People Gettin' Busy", which features the lines "Empty and cold, burning a light bulb". These lines later appeared in the B Side "One Of These Days". It is speculated that "One Of These Days" was written years before (as most songs recorded for Mutations were), but whether it evolved from that folk song or if that folk song was unrelated remains to be seen.

* Music/{{Devo}}'s 1974 track All Of Us had lyrics reused in the mid 70s track Softcore Mutations, which was rewritten into a synthrock track and played live in 1979, and then eventually evolved into Going Under in 1981. As the song evolved, the music largely changed, and it kept only a few of the original lyrics. Most notably is that "All Of Us" has a different chorus.

** There's also the case of Cracker's ''Forever'' having the phrase "guarded by monkeys" turn up in four different songs - "Brides Of Neptune", "Shameless", "What You're Missing" [[note]]where it appears in GratuitousSpanish as "Protegido por monos"[[/note]], and of course "Guarded By Monkeys". ''Guarded By Monkeys'' was also a WorkingTitle for the album itself, but the label suggested they pick something more marketable, so they made a different song the title track. The gratuitous monkey references originated as an in-joke between David Lowery and [[{{Sparklehorse}} Mark Linkous]] about making fans question one's sanity by mentioning monkeys in every song on an album.
* The opening lyrics of metal band Threshold's Wounded Land reappear somewhere in their third album, Extinct Instinct.

* Music/{{Metallica}}'s "Damage Inc." from 1986 contained the line "fuck it all and fucking no regrets". The exact same line appeared on "St. Anger" 17 years later, immediately followed by "I hit the lights on these dark sets", which is a reference to an even older song, 1983's "Hit The Lights".

* Music/RedHotChiliPeppers reused many of the lyrics from "What It Is" (a song Anthony Kiedis and Flea co-wrote for Nina Hagen) for "The Brothers Cup", with slight variations. Another early song of theirs that borrowed from "What It Is" would be "Green Heaven", specifically the lyric "the smile of a dolphin is a built-in feature" - while little else is directly borrowed from "What It Is" in this case, it's sort of notable that the both songs rhyme "feature" with "creature(s)", "teacher" and "meet you".

* Young Maylay's songs "He's Uh Felon" and "Commodity" both contain the lines "we stack it like Pringles/Hunnets, fifties, the dubs, dimes, fives and singles."

** "Egg Man", includes a slightly altered lyrical passage from "Egg Raid On Mojo", an old song from their HardcorePunk era:

--->The eggs did crack on Haze's back [[note]]In "Egg Raid On Mojo. "the eggs did crack on Mojo's back" instead. Mojo was a New York club promoter, and "Egg Raid..." was meant as a TakeThat to him. "Haze" is more of an affectionate reference to Eric Haze, an artist and graphic designer the band were friendly with, and who would later design the logo that appeared on ''Check Your Head''[[/note]]

* Music/TheBeastieBoys' ''Ill Communication'' has two {{Album Title Drop}}s: Both "Sure Shot" and "Get It Together" feature the line "Like Ma Bell, I got the ill communications".