Reimagining the Classics: Part 1
by David Barker
Introduction
Back in the time of Bach and Mozart, in other words pre-copyright, composers “borrowed” from each other all the time, frequently without acknowledgement. The purpose of having scores from elsewhere in the compositional world was as much to find works suitable to reuse as to learn what the musical styles were. Once copyright laws were put in place – the first was in the US in 1790, Europe following in the 1800s – reuse of someone else’s music had to be more open. I don’t know the legal ins and outs of works such as variations on a theme (somebody else’s), as to whether the original composer would gain any benefit.
In the modern era, there have been a number of significant legal battles over pop songs apparently borrowing from others. One very prominent one centred around the very well-known 1981 song Down Under by the Australian band Men At Work. So if writers of popular songs these days can’t delve into the works of their contemporaries, then where better to look than those works well out of copyright, i.e. from the pre-20th century classical repertoire.
So this article will look at examples of “pop” music from the last sixty or so years which are based on classical works, some very well-known, others rather less so. I am going to publish this as a series, and it may be that we will get to a “Top 40”, though there is no intention of presenting them in any particular order.
By limiting my choice to “pop” music from the 1960s onwards, earlier works such as the musical Kismet, based on music of Borodin, and the song I’ll Be Seeing You, sung by Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday and many others, which quotes Mahler 3, will miss out.
In some instances, I will leave you to track down the source music and pop songs on Spotify or YouTube (or indeed from your own collections) for the usual reasons.
I should mention that this does not mean that my other series of articles – Humour and Classical Music – has come to an end.
Can’t Help Fallin’ In Love (1961)
Yes, we are starting with Elvis. That this great ballad used the melody from a French love song of the late 1700s (Plaisir d’amour by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini) is not a closely guarded secret; it is, after all, in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page devoted to the Elvis song. It was a surprise to me though, and when I played the Martini song to my recorded music group, explaining that it was the basis for a very famous pop song, there were audible gasps when the Elvis version began.
The song was written by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss, and featured in the film Blue Hawaii. While it was not one of Elvis’s biggest hits – it only reached No. 2 on the Billboard Top 100 – it was clearly special for him, as it became one of his standard closing songs in concert, and was the very last song he performed live, in Indianapolis on June 26, 1977, six weeks before his death. It has been recorded by numerous artists since Elvis, perhaps the most surprising being Bob Dylan.
There is a YouTube video of Charlotte Church singing Plaisir d’amour on her own YT channel, so I feel confident in providing the link here. There are several YT videos of Elvis performing Can’t Help Fallin’ In Lovelive (not all of them especially well), including his last performance which is distressing to watch. There is an audio-only version of the original 1961 single on an official Elvis YT channel, so I will go with that.
A Whiter Shade of Pale (1967)
A Whiter Shade of Pale was British prog rock band Procol Harum’s first single, and became one of the biggest selling records of all time, having sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. It was number 1 on the UK charts for six weeks, and reached number 5 on the Billboard chart in the US. According to one source, it is the most played piece of music on British radio in the last 70 years. The music was originally credited to lead singer Gary Brooker only. However, Matthew Fisher, who created and played the distinctive Hammond organ solos, was eventually given a writing credit after a protracted legal battle which finished in the House of Lords. The famously inscrutable lyrics were written by Keith Reid, who was a founding member of the band, but did not perform.
The classical connection is to JS Bach, and specifically the Air from the Third Orchestral Suite (known widely as Air on a G String). Brooker has said that he had spent the previous year listening to Bach, and especially music by the Jacques Loussier Trio and The Swingle Singers, both of whom regularly adapted Bach’s music to their own style. Unlike some others in this article, the song does not quote its source exactly or in its entirety, but rather uses its rhythmic progression, in particular the sustained first note in the bass, and the descending note sequence that follows. Both works share this, but the melodic lines are different, so the oft-repeated statement that the song uses Bach’s Air does Brooker and Fisher an injustice. It is fairer to say that Whiter Shade of Pale is more “like Bach” than “by Bach”.
The official restored video of Whiter Shade is available on YouTube. There are many versions of the Bach Air on YouTube, but I felt one played on the organ was a suitable comparison in this context.
American Tune (1973)
Paul Simon was on legally safe ground with this song, which uses a melody that had several reuses before his. It is best known as the “Passion Chorale”, Erkenne mich, mein Hüter from Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Except that it wasn’t a tune by Bach, but rather one he himself borrowed. The melody was composed by Hans Leo Hassler around 1600 for a love song, but was soon appropriated for a German hymn O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (O Sacred Head, Now Wounded is the English version, which also uses the Hassler tune). Bach clearly thought it was a good tune because he used it three more times, in the Christmas Oratorio and Cantatas BWV159 & 161. And that wasn’t the end of its recycling, as Liszt employed it in Via Crucis, Rued Langgaard in a string quartet, Edmund Rubbra in his Sinfonia sacra, and by Tom Glazer in a protest folksong Because All Men Are Brothers, best known in the version by Peter, Paul and Mary.
By the time Paul Simon got round to using it in his solo career after the split with Art Garfunkel, it was a very well-travelled tune. His melancholy song about the American experience was released as a single, and while it wasn’t a hit (it reached number 35 on the charts), Rolling Stone magazine has included it in its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Simon has described it as being about as political as he ever got. It was written in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and while the Vietnam War continued.
On Paul Simon’s official channel is this audio-only version, but you can also find a video with Art Garfunkel singing at the famous 1981 concert in Central Park. There are many versions of the chorale from Bach’s Matthew Passion – here is one by the Gesualdo Six.
Beach Baby (1974)
This Beach Boys-inspired song was British band The First Class’s only hit. It reached number 4 in the US Billboard charts, which should have earned writers John Carter and Gill Shakespeare and their hired session musicians who performed it a decent payday. However, in the middle of the over five-minute single is an instrumental section, part of which is a chorale-like theme on the French horn. The fourteen-year-old me thought this section a trifle odd (I didn’t use the term chorale-like, I can assure you), whereas the sixty-year-old me thought that it sounded very much like the glorious theme of the final movement of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, inspired by a flight of swans. When I came to research this article, there it was: the Sibelius estate sued the songwriters, and were paid half of the song’s earnings. Some radio stations chose to fade out the song before the Sibelius theme began.
Beach Baby has been recently reissued, and John Carter, one of the writers, has made it available on YouTube. The Sibelius theme appears around 3:10. I’m sure you have a version of Sibelius 5 in your collection, but here is a fine version by the London Philharmonic (the swan theme appears around 1:25).
Since Yesterday (1984)
Let’s stay with Sibelius 5. Strawberry Switchblade were a Glasgow duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, whose style has been variously described as post-punk, dance-pop, goth-pop and synth-pop. It may tell you something of the quality of the music that the two singers were known as much for their over-the-top frilly polka dot dresses as their songs. Since Yesterday was their only single to be a success, reaching number 5 in the UK charts in 1985.The instrumental introduction to the song is that same Sibelius theme used in Beach Baby; it doesn’t appear again (see Postscript). What is quite curious is that I can find no indication that the Sibelius estate summoned its lawyers here, despite its use being far more obvious (being at the start of the song, rather than in the middle). The cynic in me thinks that the Sibelius estate didn’t want to make the connection with such a vapid song any more public than it already was.
This video of Since Yesterday has been on YouTube for 18 years, so it would seem no one is concerned by any copyright issues.
Postscript – a Message Board correspondent has pointed out the existence of a cover version of Since Yesterday by the British 1990s band Revolver. Their much darker version from 1992 reveals two things: the song itself isn’t vapid, and the Sibelius connection is made much clearer throughout the song, not just at the start. But the mystery as to why the Sibelius estate didn’t take legal action remains! The song has been on YouTube since 2009, so again I feel confident in providing the link for you.
