6 Famous Songs That Stole Their Melodies from Classical Music
Songs are constantly sampling predecessors, sometimes in stupid ways. When a country song does their own version of “Drift Away,” called “Chevrolet,” or someone does their own spin on Usher’s “Burn,” changing the word “relationship” to “situationship,” that’s a signal to take off your headphones and just go for a swim or something.
But songs will also look to inspiration from the more distant past, in ways that no one notices. They take a classical melody and wind it right into the new song they’ve composed. For example, many pop songs are based around Pachelbel’s Canon. We’re not going to list those because there are so many that it would take us all day. Instead, turn your ears to such examples as...
The ‘Rocky’ Theme
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The theme from Rocky is called “Gonna Fly Now.” You’ll know it if you’ve seen the movie, of course, but even if you haven’t, you’ll have heard it played, possibly at some game you were attending or maybe to score some training montage in a TV show.
The main repeating melody might be the part that will inspire you to keep going, but it’s those opening 10 seconds that will get you to jump up and start moving in the first place. And that opening part of the tune wasn’t exactly written by composer Bill Conti like the rest. He adapted it from the opening of this piece written in the 17th century for the Habsburg emperors who ruled Italy.
The piece is titled “Three Sonatinas for 2 Clarini,” and we don’t know who composed it. The Italian court wrote down the song but not the name of its composer.
The music at the start of the Rocky theme (“Gonna Fly Now”) wasn’t written specifically for the film. Instead, it was written in the 17th cent reappeared to the world in an album released in 1966, one decade before Rocky came out. Luckily for Bill Conti, this bit of copying wasn’t enough to render “Gonna Fly Now” ineligible for a Best Original Song nomination at the Oscars.
‘Somewhere’
The play West Side Story ends on the song “Somewhere,” also known as “There’s a Place for Us.” Maria sings it, and it’s a reprise of the same song earlier sung by her and Tony together. Controversially, the recent Steven Spielberg version gave the song to Rita Moreno’s new version of the Doc character, so the show instead ends with Maria singing “Tonight.” This has led to much anger from fans in opposing camps, the sort that can only be resolved by a rumble.
Jump to the part of the song that goes “Hold my hand, and we’re halfway there,” a minute and 56 seconds into the above video. Hey! That’s the theme from Swan Lake (36 seconds into the video below).
As for the “There’s a place for us” part, that tune also comes from classical music. Zip to 22:07 in this next video, a 45-minute Beethoven concerto, and here’s that exact melody there:
Beethoven was feeling wistful when he composed that. He was in Vienna, currently under siege by Napoleon. Many people had their own reasons to object to this invasion, but Beethoven’s main objection was that all the drugs and cannons were deafening him. As he wrote this piece, he covered his head with pillows to try to protect what remained of his sense of hearing.
‘Smoke on the Water’
You might not have previously heard that Beethoven concerto, but you’ve definitely heard his Fifth Symphony:
In particular, you know the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth. You also know the beginning of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” and that even goes for those of you who’ve never heard a single word of the verses:
That opening riff is based on the opening of the Fifth. It’s an inversion of those famous four notes.
This would be one of our favorite facts about music, period — if we were able to recognize the connection when we listen to the two. Personally, we can’t, so we’re just going to have to show you Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore explaining it and hope that you’ll have better luck.
The Nokia Song
There was a time when seemingly every mobile phone was a Nokia, and the default Nokia ringtone filled the air. Over in Denmark, people noticed to their delight that birds were staring to sing the tune themselves, to attract mates.
The tune was written a full century before that. It was called “Grande Valse,” and Spanish composer Francisco Tárrega wrote it for the classical guitar. You might think a piano melody would best suit a monophonic ringtone, simply because both pianos and phones have keys, but this riff proved more distinctive. Jump to 2:29 in the below video to hear it:
Nokia started by including the song in an ad in 1992. They made it the default ringtone after that. Later still, everyone grafted their phones to their bodies and realized there’s no need for ringtones at all, when vibrations suffice.
The Samsung Washer Song
This next fact will mean nothing unless you have a Samsung washing machine. But people who do have Samsung washing machines all seem to love hearing it, so we’re going to tell it to you. Samsung machines play a song when the wash cycle finishes:
This wasn’t a song composed by the A.I. that photographs your dirty laundry and sells the images to interested buyers. That’s “Die Forelle” by Franz Schubert.
The title means “The Trout,” and the lyrics are about a fish caught by a fisherman. The song is really a warning to women to avoid being caught by men. “Girls, see seducers with their tackle!” say the lyrics, likening a man’s penis to a fishing rod. “Or else, too late, you’ll bleed.”
‘All By Myself’
In 1975, Eric Carmen wrote “All By Myself,” and for the verses, he used a melody from “Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor” by Sergei Rachmaninoff.
It’s not a very catchy tune, and making a pop song out of it was probably more challenging than just coming up with a tune of his own. The song was a hit, and the Celine Dion cover 20 years later was even bigger.
The fun thing about using classical music in your songs is that that old stuff is all public domain, so no one can stop you. At least, that’s what Eric Carmen thought when he wrote the song. Then he learned that the original concerto, written in 1901, remained under copyright in Europe. The Rachmaninoffs remained in existence and were entitled to a piece of his hit.
Eric Carmen’s song is officially credited to Eric Carmen and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Celine Dion’s is also credited to Eric Carmen and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The original songwriting contribution meant that the Rachmaninoff estate got 12 percent of the royalties. That’s a nice long-lasting payday considering that the composer himself was born back before the invention of the telephone.
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