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Topic ClosedUnexpected, unlikely or bizarre musical quotes

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zappaholic View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Unexpected, unlikely or bizarre musical quotes
    Posted: March 22 2017 at 08:47
In case the title cuts off, it's "Unexpected, unlikely or bizarre musical quotes".

What I'm talking about here is when a melody from one song is "quoted" in another song - for example, Sugarloaf's use of the "I Feel Fine" riff in "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You".  (This is distinct from sampling, in which the original recording is lifted "as is" instead of being re-played by actual human musicians.)

At my work recently, they had an '80s station on the Sirius XM music feed, and I was surprised to learn that "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred (a song I never paid much attention to when it was current) quotes the melody of Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun".

From my own music collection, "Let Me Shut That For You" by OverKill quotes "There's a Kind Of Hush (All Over the World)" by Herman's Hermits!

Any other such quotes that have made you say WTF?


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KingCrInuYasha View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 22 2017 at 09:30
Not sure if it's direct or intentional, but I think Rush's "La Villa Strangiato" quotes the main riff of the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop".
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 22 2017 at 09:41
On Charles Mingus' version of "C-Jam Blues" from Mingus at Carnegie Hall, John Faddis, the trumpeter, plays a tiny bit of Bizet's "Habanera" on his solo - works really well and also is quite unexpected.
Also, I find a strange similarity between the chorus from the movie Black Dynamite and the theme of Gong's tune "Dynamite," but it might be just a coincidence.
I'm sure I know many more of these, but these two just came to my mind right away.



Edited by ALotOfBottle - March 22 2017 at 09:42
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 22 2017 at 21:50
Originally posted by KingCrInuYasha KingCrInuYasha wrote:

Not sure if it's direct or intentional, but I think Rush's "La Villa Strangiato" quotes the main riff of the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop".

Probably not intentional, but more just a reflection of how ubiquitous chugging along on some good ol' 1-4-5 power chords is in rock.
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chopper View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 23 2017 at 04:52
Originally posted by zappaholic zappaholic wrote:


At my work recently, they had an '80s station on the Sirius XM music feed, and I was surprised to learn that "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred (a song I never paid much attention to when it was current) quotes the melody of Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun"

It's also used in Cozy Powell's "Dance With The Devil".
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 24 2017 at 07:22
Originally posted by chopper chopper wrote:

Originally posted by zappaholic zappaholic wrote:


At my work recently, they had an '80s station on the Sirius XM music feed, and I was surprised to learn that "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred (a song I never paid much attention to when it was current) quotes the melody of Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun"

It's also used in Cozy Powell's "Dance With The Devil".


I wouldn't really call that unexpected, unlikely or bizarre though, since Powell's in the same basic ballpark as Hendrix.


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Tom Ozric View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 25 2017 at 08:36
There's a song on the Armageddon album called Silver Tightrope. The mid-section is a beautifully slow rendition of Satie's Gymnopedies done on guitar and bowed-bass. It's the highlight of the album for me !!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 25 2017 at 14:34
Just listened to this one for the first time yesterday, it had me dying laughing, unfortunately I don't recognize the quotation that starts at roughly 2:15, help? I do love the audacity of a sludge metal group just throwing a classical excerpt into the middle of a song. I wish this album had more  nonsense like this. 




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Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 25 2017 at 14:51
This kind if thing is very common in jazz. Dexter Gordon, for an example, was one for humourous musical quotations in his solos - e.g. there's a rendition of Three O'Clock In The Morning on one of his Blue Note LPs where he quotes the melody of Take Me Out To The Ball Game.

Pretty far from the shores of prog, though.

Edited by Mascodagama - March 25 2017 at 14:52
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