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Have a look at my video on artists who re-recorded their old songs:.
I've done lots of videos of songwriters copying other individuals's tunes, and typically winding up in court for it! But today I'm looking at songwriters who, for much better or worst, have recycled their own concepts and tunes into brand-new hits!
The outro music to this video is my track "Clap" which you can hear in full on Spotify:.
And, an extra special thanks goes to Peter Keller, Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel's Patreon saints!.
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0:00 Intro.
0:20 One hit wonders.
1:47 Chuck Berry.
2:32 The Kinks.
3:30 Pianote.
4:27 John Fogerty vs. CCR.
6:13 Re-recording songs.
6:40 Patreon.
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Chuck Berry’s School Days was later recycled for No Particular Place to Go. The verse melodies and lead guitar parts are about identitcal.
Yes, absolutely.
I, myself prefer « No Particular Place to Go » 😊🎸
Cream’s ‘White Room’ is another example which recycles the chord progression from their earlier ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’
“Strange Brew” and “Lawdy Mama” (both off Disraeli Gears by Cream) also have pretty much the same backing track.
And then The Cult recycled again for Aphrodisiac jacket
Bullet for my Valentine’s ‘Say Goodnight’ and ‘A Place Where you Belong’ are basically identical in their intros, only the latter is played higher
“Rock the Joint” (1952) and “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” (1954) by Bill Haley & His Comets also share exactly the same guitar riff in their first instrumental breaks. 👍
Simon and Garfunkel did this with Wednesday Morning, 3 AM and Somewhere They Can’t Find Me with the words. Took me a while to figure out why the lyrics sounded so familiar in the latter 😅
I’d say Chuck Berry is just using that riff as a signature, pretty common in blues. Robert Johnson did something similar.
Anthrax reused the riff of Gridlock from their Persistence of Time album for their song Fight Em Til You Can’t from Worship Music. This seemed to work to give it some new life, as that song was bigger than Gridlock was.
Metallica reused the lyrics of Damage Inc. in St Anger. This did not work like Anthrax’s effort did.
I thought the same thing about Chuck Berry. It’s like how producers have their signature in the songs they produce.
Don’t Let Me Down and Give Peace A Chance are remarkably similar. Perhaps due to the fact that Lennon was a huge fan of using slow triplets for impact.
If you think that’s bad, you should hear
Mambo Number 2.
This caught me in the right mood lol this is great
@Freddy Conover Lol. At first I thought it was too puerile for an obviously intelligent muso crowd, but hey it’s the weekend 😆
Poo jokes :))
There are also lyrical references. The Beatles like to do it, like when they mention Strawberry Fields in Glass Onion, and Lucy in the Sky in I am the Walrus.
I found the one-hit wonders trying to make another hit off the same theme of their first hit kinda sad, but Chuck Berry’s usage of his JBG riff had me laughing haha.
I’m surprised that the artists, as well as the record companies, thought these songs were different enough from the prior songs that the public would want to buy them.
Sadly, in academia, self-plagiarism is a real thing we have to watch out for. It’s insane.
In Brazil we had a famous case. Luiz Gonzaga made a huge hit here with his Song “Asa Branca” which is in major tone and translates like white wing. Then he released another song, “Assum Preto” (translated as blackbird) which is basically The same song (same melody and The same chord progression) but he mirrored The harmony into The minor tone. Both are immensely popular in Brazil. The lyrics were different.
The Kinks’ “Destroyer” sounds closer to The Doors’ “Hello I love you”, which in turn took the “All Day and All of the Night” riff.
NOFX deliberately did this in their song “And Now for Something Completely Similar.” As the title suggests, they’re intentionally copying past work. The only lyrics are “Hello, Welcome to our CD, Can you hear the blatant similarity to Linoleum and Shadows of Defeat?” “Linoleum” is their biggest hit. And “Shadows of Defeat” is a song by Good Riddance, a band who were on Fat Wreck Chords, a label owned by the lead singer and songwriter of NOFX.
It’s the first song on the album. It actually doesn’t sound like “Linoleum” except for at the very beginning. But it’s a funny troll job. I also appreciate that the “And Now for Something Completely Similar” is a play on Monty Python’s “And Now for Something Completely Different,” but that’s off topic.
I’m sure there are tons of other songs where an artist deliberately references their own songs. Obviously, you have John Lennon doing it in “I Am the Walrus,” but that’s just a lyrical reference and not a musical one. I’m sure I’ll think of others later.
The Chuck Berry part is hilarious. Excellent editing 😀
I like how Harrison wrote both “Here Comes the Sun” and “Here Comes the Moon”
Excellent video as always. Love the channel. Surprised no mention of bands that intentionally reference other songs for story purposes. Tons of prog bands do this for concept albums or even between albums as subtle nods or Easter eggs. Dream theater – octavarium or Metropolis pt2 are good examples.
Haven’t watched yet but Gary Moore is notorious on this. He wrote Parisienne Walkways using the circle of 5ths and then used that same progression in a similar way on Still Got The Blues and also used it on other songs
I always looked at Chuck Berry’s intro lick as an early equivalent to the producer/label idents in rap and hip hop music today. It’s like a quick little musical identifier that says to a new listener, “This is a Chuck Berry song; you’re in good hands.”
Dream Theater had the idea for an entire album back when they released the album “Images and Words”, but the record label didn’t feel it was a good idea back then. So they made the song “Metropolis” and called it “Part 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper”
Later they revisited the idea and made the album “Metropolis, Part 2: Scenes from a Memory”.
A lot of the concepts from the song (part 1) are repeated in sections from songs on the later album (part 2).
Howard Kaylan from The Turtles wrote the song “Elenore” with a musical structure very reminiscent of their previous No. 1 hit single “Happy Together” (written by Alan Gordon and Garry Bonner) in response to their record label’s pressure on the band to hit another chart-topper.