I'm listening to a bunch of Bob Rivers holiday music. And just learned to my horror that "O Little Town of Bethlehem" scan to "House of the Rising Sun"
Yes, and either of them will scan to "Yellow Rose of Texas"... and to a whole bunch of other stuff as well.
[mode="music-geek"] This happens because all of those songs are written in what's known as "ballad meter". It's called that because so many of the old traditional ballads like "Sir Patrick Spens" and "King Henry" were written in it.
The basic scansion pattern of ballad meter is: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM (beat). Lots of hymns fit that pattern, as do a number of popular children's songs -- and a great deal of filk, such as Bill Sutton's "Stray Dog Man" and the verse (but not the chorus) of "Banned From Argo". And anything written in ballad meter will scan to the tune of anything else written in it! The possibilities are mind-boggling; one common filkers' game is to pick a song, such as "House of the Rising Sun", and see how many other songs can be sung to it, going around the circle by turns. [/mode]
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[mode="music-geek"]
This happens because all of those songs are written in what's known as "ballad meter". It's called that because so many of the old traditional ballads like "Sir Patrick Spens" and "King Henry" were written in it.
The basic scansion pattern of ballad meter is: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM (beat). Lots of hymns fit that pattern, as do a number of popular children's songs -- and a great deal of filk, such as Bill Sutton's "Stray Dog Man" and the verse (but not the chorus) of "Banned From Argo". And anything written in ballad meter will scan to the tune of anything else written in it! The possibilities are mind-boggling; one common filkers' game is to pick a song, such as "House of the Rising Sun", and see how many other songs can be sung to it, going around the circle by turns.
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I'd *love* to have a more complete list, but...
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:-)
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Alas, I can't seem to find the MP3 of "I am Ironman" done as a swing(?) or Be-Bop(?) number...
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Yes, actually! I've heard of it, but never heard it done. janetmiles@chartertn.net , if you would.
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Yet another
I knew it had to do with all of these being in a fairly common meter, but thanks to