I repeat, this is not a Christmas post. What it is is a post about how easily one song can be mistaken for another.
For example, several years ago my friend Ellis D. (God rest his soul) asked me why an organist in a church would play the old pop song "Now Is The Hour (When We Must Say Goodbye)". I hasten to inject here that I was was not the organist in question. The song was very popular back in the day and such artists as Gracie Fields, Bing Crosby, and Vera Lynn all recorded it. I told Ellis that what he had heard was not "Now Is The Hour" but a Maori folk tune from New Zealand (Wikipedia now says it actually isn't) to which someone else had put these religious words based on the 139th Psalm:
Search me, O God
And know my heart today
Try me, O Savior
Know my heart, I pray
See if there be
Some wicked way in me
Cleanse me from every sin
And set me free.
Ellis had not heard "Now Is The Hour" at all but "Search Me, O God".
I have had a couple of similar experiences myself. Because I am a Christian and a musician, I probably watch more religious programming on television than the average person. So it was with great surprise that I began hearing violins playing "Arrivederci, Roma" as station-break music on one Christian network. Turns out it was not "Arrivederci, Roma" at all; it was "There came a sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind" which is the opening line of the first verse of a song called "There Is A River." Who knew?
I learned a lot of new (to me) songs listening to that network, so when Mrs. RWP retrieves ice from the automatic dispenser on our new refrigerator and it makes a faint, far-off, French-horn-like sound consisting of the first and sixth tones of a major scale (I told you I was a musician), others might hear the opening of "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" and Americans of a certain age might hear two-thirds of the 1-6-4 combination of tones the National Broadcasting Company used for many years for its identifying chimes (N-B-C). What I hear instead is an old hymn written by African-American pastor G.T. Haywood around 1912:
I see a crimson stream of blood
It flows from Calvary
Its waves, which reach the throne of God
Are sweeping over me.
Johnny Carson (remember him?) used to get "Autumn In New York" confused with "Moonlight In Vermont".
I know many of you have thought from time to time in the privacy of your own homes that I am a bit weird. Now I have provided you with actual proof.
Has anybody out there in Blogland had similar experiences of mistaking one song for another?
Report it in the comments if you dare.
oh yea, that happens to me all the time but I can't remember the specifics to tell you!
ReplyDeleteI forgot about "Search me, O God" It's a lovely little devotion.
kylie, I wish you could remember the specifics.
DeleteIt happens often. It used to be that the opening riff for Johnny Be Good was unique. Now there are several songs that begin similarly..
ReplyDeleteEmma, all rock-and-roll riffs sound the same to me.
DeleteOkay. Love Me Tender is the same tune as Aura Lee. The Star Spangled Banner is to the tune of an old drinking song. America The Beautiful shares the music of God Save The Queen. It's Now Or Never is new words for O Sole Mio. Could It Be Magic is taken from Chopin's Prelude in C Minor No. 20. All By Myself comes from Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor. A Whiter Shade Of Pale is from Air on a G String. A Lovers' Concerto is Minuet In G Major. There are so many more. Good music is always good music.
DeleteGreat work, Emma! The song used for the Star-Spangled Banner is "To Anacreon In Heaven". Not "America the Beauiful" but plain old "America" (the one that goes "My country, 'tis of thee") that uses the same tune as "God Save the Queen" (now "King"). There is also another pop song on another part of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor called "Full Moon And Empty Arms". You also reminded me that Della Reese's great his, "Don't You Know" uses the tune of "Musetta's Waltz" from Puccini's "La Boheme". One of the greatest replies I have ever received because you followed the directions!
DeleteAnd I heard another one just this week, a Christmas anthem they are calling "Christ Is Born" that uses the music of "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot" -- except at the very end, when they leave out the high note in the original.
DeleteOh how I loved Della Reese's voice especially in Don't You Know. Thank you for that one..
DeleteNot music, but this reminded me of a time when one of our boys was tiny. At Maundy Thursday supper, he listened intently to the readings, and was later seen in deep discussion with the minister over something. It later transpired that he had gone to ask why the man had washed his hands in butter! Our minister, after sagely asking for time to consider, was able to explain that what the Scripture actually said was, "Pilate washed his hands of the MATTER". I still get the temptation to put in the wrong word, just to see if everybody is paying attention.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to hear from you, Elizabeth! I hope you and yours have a happy, healthy, prosperous, and peaceful 2023.
DeleteToo funny about Pilate washing his hands in butter! I don't have one to equal or top that, but I did just think of another popular song based on classical music: "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" from the middle of Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu.
Are you still blogging or are you out and about on Faceook only?
http://stanforthsharpe.uk
ReplyDelete