Instrumental Pieces that Everyone Knows but that Hardly Anyone Knows the Name/Composer Of

That this piece of music has a title; that that title is "Entrance of the Gladiators"; and that the composer intended it to be played for soldiers as they marched off to glory in war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0CyOAO8y0

― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, September 16, 2020 6:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I am reminded of William Gibson's quote "The street finds its own uses for things."

― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, September 16, 2020 6:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

serious lols at that

― visiting, Wednesday, September 16, 2020 6:29 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I can't be the only person to read the composer's name as 'Julius Fuck', right?

― emil.y, Wednesday, September 16, 2020 6:45 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Holy shit and Julius Fuck, I never thought of that music as anything other than circus/Looney Tunes music.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, September 17, 2020 6:49 AM (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, this is the craziest shit ever

― kinder, Thursday, September 17, 2020 6:57 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been meaning to start a thread forever to showcase the instrumental pieces that everyone knows but that hardly anyone knows the name/composer of. Like 'Sabre Dance':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqg3l3r_DRI

― Don't be such an idot. (Old Lunch), Thursday, September 17, 2020 7:05 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

great thread idea! i was at a relative's organ recital(!) and the best bit was watching the audience reaction when they recognised what was written down in the program as "J.S.Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor". top marks went to the kid in front who said excitedly "it's the Dracula song!!!"

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Thursday, September 17, 2020 7:13 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY

anyone know much about the Orientalist vamp that kicks off King Fu Fighting?

Low hanging fruit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaC0vNLdLvY

or the Arabish vamp where people sing "In the South Of France / Where the naked ladies dance"?

great thread idea and count me also gobsmacked by the origin of the circus clown song

And I mean, yes, of course, this is ILM so a lot of you nerds absolutely know the names of these things but I'm thinking about the layman here, Joe Lunchpail, hearing one of these pieces popping up in the middle of a Looney Tune but never being able to put a name to it.

Like I'm sure y'all were already hip but it wasn't until a decade or so ago that I finally learned the name of this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CI-0E_jses

I want to know the origin of the 9 or so note "Oriental" connotation melody, like at the beginning of Rush's "A Passage to Bangkok."

There are a few great instrumental rock examples of this, too. Like this sultry film noir-y one one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfAv8yAaHps

Dog Latin, you are speaking of "The Streets of Cairo." Its authorship is murky because it's probably a folk melody that various composers have leapt on and arranged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_riff?wprov=sfla1

For Josh, a similar story attends the "oriental riff" as used in "Kung Fu Fighting."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_riff?wprov=sfla1

for me, though, the great grandaddy of all these has to be the French folk song "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman," which shows up as the alphabet song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc.

Mozart wrote variations on it but did not compose it.

Now I'm realizing I've forgotten the name of that other big band tune everyone knows, the one that starts out

BUM baaadaBUM baaadaBUM baaadaBUM baaadaBUM baaadaBADABAWAAOW BADABAWAAOW

(^professional music notation, iirc)

You sure that's not Sousa?

What's the one that's played on a xylophone or something like that and sounds like either hold music or elevator muzak from the 70s?

It goes:

Dum da dum da dum da dum

Da da dum

Da da dum da dum

Then it goes a bit higher, and then back to the start

I'm sure the answer to some of these questions is "Lawrence Welk" or "Henry Mancini" or the like.

Ahhhhhhh, okay, the big band tune I was thinking of is Benny Goodman - 'Sing Sing Sing'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_E0UVNtJ9Y

Also, see this: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/03/heres-a-playlist-of-songs-you-know-but-you-cant-name/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW0W7j04iRQ

Funiculi Funicula (Luigi Denza)

Things like this fascinate me. Like for example, who composed "Chopsticks", etc.

I hope that song made that man very rich.

Also, generally any classical music widely used in cartoons will fit in this category. "Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet" by Tchaikovsky is a good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHvnMi9_9mM

Ahhh the Funiculi Funicula, I never knew what it was but I feel like it's in my head, lurking, somewhere for a significant proportion of time.
As is another that goes
da- duh-duh DUH x2
da- duh-duh DUH x2 (lower DUH)
da- duh-duh DUH x2 (higher DUHs)
da- duh-duh DUHHH (highest DUH)

was going to suggest 'theme from a summer place' but it's on Old Lunch's lifehacker article.

Bent Fabric - 'The Alley Cat'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eTHNaBbRYw

David Rose - 'The Stripper'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2CWfSLyjx8

The Chantays - 'Pipeline'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7c2ZKamzS4

The Mar-Keys - 'Last Night'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX5T9GvSnbY

The T-Bones - 'No Matter What Shape'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SH2V8BLfUs

The Viscounts (after Duke Ellington) - 'Harlem Nocturne'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfAv8yAaHps

I vaguely remember a Saturday Night Live fake ad for a compilation album called Classical Music You Know From Cartoons, or something similar.

Anyone who hasn't heard Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream and Other Delights or Booker T.'s Green Onions will be surprised to learn that they already know about half of each album.

for me, though, the great grandaddy of all these has to be the French folk song "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman," which shows up as the alphabet song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc.

Mozart wrote variations on it but did not compose it.

What's funny is the French version I first knew of this was a back-translation of the English "Brille brille petite étoile". I only knew about the original bc of the Mozart and only found out what the words are just now. (They are better.)

That was the first version of it in French that I knew of, not the first version of the song I knew, which was probably "Twinkle", ofc.

I didn't know about Fucik either, embarrassingly.

It's okay, everyone has their first Fucik encounter when the time is right.

(Yes, everyone of a certain age probably already knows this but still) Marvin Hamlisch - 'The Entertainer'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T4Uk7mDR-w

um "The Entertainer" is very very very famously Scott Joplin

most of these way too well known

this is a classic tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LJ1i7222c

never understood "The Stripper". It is so unsexy

I was going to suggest 'The Stripper' for this, pretty sure everyone knows it's called 'The Stripper' but I certainly had no idea who it was by.

I always thought 'The Entertainer' was a Joplin tune, though. *googles quickly* It is a Joplin tune! Hamlisch's version is probably what gets played most, though? (oh, and it's an xpost, yes, NV OTM)

If you boarded a plane or stood in an elevator between 1966 and 1983, you'll have heard this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO6q9eOQq5g&ab_channel=boytronic66

This is a repository, a place to learn, I am but a lowly Joe Lunchpail who only knows about songs with words

https://youtu.be/x3Bz6AQNIO4

http://youtu.be/x3Bz6AQNIO4

'The Stripper' is the funniest thing to me because, yes, it's so thoroughly unsexy. It's like someone mashing a nudie mag in your face.

god dammit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Bz6AQNIO4

I love "The Stripper", it's def not lapdancer sexy and all the better for it

"gran vals" by francesco tarrega has a little part that is instantly familiar that everyone has heard a million times, but i doubt even 2% of people have heard the entire piece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQzUx3QW2Y

Richard Wagner - “Bridal Chorus” from the opera Lohengrin (i.e. here comes the bride)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C5FOW2ekHo

xpost Kinda like 'Tubular Bells', which takes on a whole 'nother flavor once you hear more than the minute and a half featured in The Exorcist.

'Yakety Sax' is another one where probably most people know the name of the song but not the composer. I feel like it's too well-known to really count here, though. Also kept too close to its original intentions, maybe?

I didn't know "here comes the bride" was Wagner!

Isn't that well-known to be Wagner? 3xp ha maybe not

also v. popular at weddings, Toccata from Charles Marie Widor’s 5th Organ Symphony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSfJTiWTf4k

haven't heard The Typewriter in years. Thanks NV

Reminds me of the Sandpaper Ballet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doV2j3_Amgo

Oh, I might just be ignorant, I'm not great with classical music, I once asked my gran what she was playing in the kitchen and it was Handel's 'Messiah'.

xxp

Everyone knows the galloping William Tell Overture part, but cartoons made good use of the little "wake up, sleepyhead" motif that pops up around the 6:10 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoBE69wdSkQ

Nah, probably not. If I teach perfect fourths, I'm more likely to say "here comes the bride" than "Wagner's 'Bridal Chorus'", it's true. (Also, minor sixths are "'The Entertainer', you know, the ice cream truck song" more than "Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer'".) xp

speaking of "wake up, sleepyhead," i'm sure everyone has heard "morning mood," but i'd be surprised if most people knew that it was edvard grieg and that it was part of the same suite as "in the hall of the mountain king"

For about a decade I thought of 'O Fortuna' as "that spooky cult music from Young Sherlock Holmes". And in fact by googling now I see that it wasn't even in that film, there was a piece composed specifically for it that just sounded quite like 'O Fortuna'. Ah jeez.

Saint-Saëns "Carnival of the Animals" was raided often by cartoons: Aquarium, Fossils and The Swan probably the most used

I actually think that 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' is kind of a contender for this. Lots of people know the origins, but there must be thousands of people out there who don't, it's used so widely elsewhere.

xpost Also used in the score to ... "Babe?"

Bach's "Air on a G String" is pretty familiar, but it also pops up loosely referenced in a lot of pop music, like the Chamberlin solo in Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" and "White Shade of Pale."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMkmQlfOJDk

I reckon most people would say they don't know the Bob James tune 'Angela' if asked on the street but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xfP4oskP9s

Lots of classical pieces used in "The Smurfs!"

https://smurfs.fandom.com/wiki/Smurfs_(1981_TV_series)/Classical_music_compositions

xpost (Not to go down the rabbit hole of TV theme songs, but then most of them have helpful titles like 'Theme from Knight Rider'.)

"'The Entertainer', you know, the ice cream truck song"

in the u.s., the song that people think of as "the ice cream truck song" is "turkey in the straw," which both qualifies for this thread and has origins that are, uh, horrifically racist: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/05/11/310708342/recall-that-ice-cream-truck-song-we-have-unpleasant-news-for-you

I reckon most people would say they don't know the Bob James tune 'Angela' if asked on the street

ha, i heard that melody in the souls of mischief song "cab fare" before i'd ever seen an episode of taxi or heard its theme song.

Just to back myself up with my 'Hall Of The Mountain King' claim, this is where a lot of us would have first heard it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUK_Wa9cHTY

lol "O Fortuna" was "the theme from the Old Spice adverts"
for my generation

other big wedding tune is Mendelssohn from "Romeo and Juliet" iirc

never mind, Midsummer Night's Dream, wrong Shakespeare

I actually think that 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King' is kind of a contender for this. Lots of people know the origins, but there must be thousands of people out there who don't, it's used so widely elsewhere.

Yeah I was just about to post something similar. Lots of Grieg.

What's the name of that other stereotypical Italian music that is kind of similar in tempo and energy to Funiculi Funicula but isn't Funiculi Funicula? (Sorry if I'm being really vague here)

Nevermind. I was thinking of Tarantella Napoletana.
The first song from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gt92CPU9Nk

This guy also has French and Russian songs.

Grieg's Norwegian Dance #2 is commonly known in Norway as "the Norge Rundt song", from a general interest show that was on our single public broadcast channel in the 80s.
Somewhat more recently it's also become the ice cream wagon song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYrCj4lweLg

that Manic Miner theme sounds more like Inspector Gadget than In The Hall

norwegian dance sounds a bit like Black And White by Greyhound

i've got "Testiculi Testicula" stuck in my head now

I know “Funiculi Funicula” mostly from my son’s Fisher Price counting toy: “Counting, counting, counting is such fun. Count with me, let’s start with number one. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. Wasn’t that the best I would love to count again!”

I think a bunch of 50s/60s instrumentals - like "Love Is Blue" and "Walk Don't Run" and "Theme from Summer Place" are in this mix.

Also "Sleep Walk," here played by someone in a sasquatch costume.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3nxBOAWV04

Jura Orchestra - “On the Franches Mountains”

https://youtu.be/QfTEhUECaXk

Familiar to anyone who watches The Price Is Right.

that Manic Miner theme sounds more like Inspector Gadget than In The Hall

― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin)

Yeah, I have strong memories of it sounding more accurate, but it is meant to be ITHOTMK. It appears throughout the game, too.

that Manic Miner theme sounds more like Inspector Gadget than In The Hall

― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin), Thursday, September 17, 2020 3:08 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would have sworn blind it was meant to be ITHOTMK but
<re-listens>
I feel like my childhood is being rewritten!

inspired a bit by that italian songs video above, the minuet by luigi boccherini has got to be a contender for "most famous classical piece by an unfamous composer"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZOknKotVc

xp they're really really similar

per wiki:

On the Spectrum this was the first game with in-game music, the playing of which required constant CPU attention and was thought impossible. It was achieved by constantly alternating CPU time between the music and the game. This results in the music's stuttery rhythm. The in-game music is In the Hall of the Mountain King from Edvard Grieg's music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt. The music that plays during the title screen is an arrangement of The Blue Danube.

Just posting the IG theme cos it's so effing good though. Whoever writes a theme that people remember so fondly 30 or 40 years later has to be a genius

https://youtu.be/hO9xbbaBtiI

For years, I didn't know what "Jerusalem" the "tune" was, and in fact the ony one I knew was this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7_gmY2x6wg

.. (the second to last "miniature")

There's something wrong with the music in that particular Manic Miner video... If you check other videos of the game you'll find that the music was more accurate.

yeah that video is wrong, i played a lot of Manic Miner and Jetset Willy

thank fuck, it seems to be a deliberate version of Inspector Gadget.
of all the things I expected to be gaslit about, the manic miner theme was not one of them!

Sorry, I only listened to a little bit and it sounded Hall of the Mountain Kingy, I thought the slightly off-ness was just the oldness of the computer!

"most famous classical piece by an unfamous composer"

That Boccherini one is like the classic "fancy restaurant theme." I'd say this sub category suits "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber. Is he known for anything else?

You rarely hear people talking about Pachelbel deep cuts, Pachelbel rarities, or Pachelbel b-sides.

Pachelbel may be famous, but is mos def a one-hit wonder.

Hope he gets royalties.

I don't know if this is what paolo was thinking of upthread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCHRW8G9yY

RFI: The origin of that stereotypical "oriental" song that plays in movies and is also featured in "China Girl"

https://vault.si.com/vault/1990/11/12/give-him-credit-for-the-charge-tommy-walker-converted-six-notes-into-a-famous-fanfare

In the lore of USC football, Thomas Luttgen Walker is Tommy the Toe, the Trojan drum major who would tear off his uniform jacket, throw his baton to the ground and rush from the stands onto the field to kick conversions for the cardinal and gold. The fans adored Walker, as did the media. To one sportswriter, Walker was "The Caliph of Conversion." In 1947 a picture of Walker wearing a tall white shako as he booted a football appeared in LIFE and nearly everywhere else.

Few people know that Walker, who died in 1986 at the age of 63, made a more lasting contribution to college football. A decorated veteran of World War II, Walker returned to USC as a junior in the fall of 1946 and found the football team in need of a lift. He wrote a six-note fanfare for the trumpet section: "Da da da DUT da DUH!" Trojan rooters then screamed, "Charge!"

Johnny Mandell - "Suicide Is Painless" (instrumental)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJuJNw6oayg

^^ That's very well known to UK people of a certain age, as the Manics covered it.

A lot of people know the name of this one (since it's the only lyric in the song), but I would bet that most couldn't name the band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H6amDbAwlY

Or the session aces that comprise the band, who recorded it as a lark during downtime on another session.

Wait, I take it back. I think the Champs recorded that themselves, and used all the Wrecking Crew guys on subsequent recordings.

As a kid, I only knew it as the song Pee Wee Herman dances to in Pee Wee's Big Adventure

If you listened to any rap music in the last 5 or 6 years, you know the sound, but may not know it's Quincy Jones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOy6hqzfsAs

Also, generally any classical music widely used in cartoons will fit in this category. "Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet" by Tchaikovsky is a good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHvnMi9_9mM

― justfanoe (Greg Fanoe), Thursday, 17 September 2020 13:08 (five hours ago)

This is a good one (that I didn't know). I'd add Rossini's "Call to the Cows" to the cartoon music pantheon:
https://youtu.be/uIZPFeqMZRY

lol That's the one I posted as "wake up, sleepyhead."

This could end up being my Mandela Effect thread... i also thought Hall of the Mountain King was in Fantasia, but apparently it's not.

that's mussorgsky's "night at bald mountain"

Yeah, and other "Spooky Halloween Music" comps.

unknown composer iirc but along the lines of “oriental riff” is “mysterioso pizzicato” which everybody knows but few know the name of

oh that's a really good one.

there's a piece of instrumental music I've been carrying around in my head since childhood which I must have heard on a story tape or a cartoon or something which shares a likeness to mysterioso pizzicato and Hall Of The Mountain King. I don't know if it's well known or just stock music, but I'm sure I used to hear it in things a lot. It had the same mysterious, suspenseful 'sneaking around' vibe and featured interplay between low end instruments (double bass, bass clarinet) and oboe. I wish I could work out what it was

That previous Manic Miner is bogus, here's actual game footage with the real tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgUzteADsRI

Jet Set Willy was "if I was a rich man"

(oops, missed some discussion between closing laptop and opening phone)

ooooh good call on mysterioso pizzicato

One for the list - carnival of the animals: fossils

damn, I just realized I've always conflated that boccherini above and Vivaldi's Spring. Two different rich people scenes! Boccherini is for the banquet, and Vivaldi is for the carriages and croquet out on the grounds!

Yeah that SilvaGunner channel for that Manic Miner video is basically dedicated to joke versions of video game themes, often based around actual songs.

Not technically an instrumental, but the orchestral intro of this will probably be familiar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KB1WbEkjk

Even though I bet a lot of ILMers know who this one is, I would guess it fits the thread for the general public
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTg6rZJCu4

Herb Alpert similarly

I only learned a few months when reading a plaque on a clock tower that this piece has an actual title
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK_n1ON6HM4

#toolazytosearch but isn't there a thread of songs that incorporate the Westminster Quarters?

(if not, there should be!)

For anyone of a certain age in the UK, 'Air on a G String' is indelibly associated with Hamlet cigars. I didn't realise that the connection went back quite so far. The Gregor Fisher baldy man is a mini-classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIckHmwZAeI

don't know if it's a generational thing, but back when i was working at a goodwill retail store with a bunch of early twenties folks, i was being stupid and singing the pink panther theme and most of them were surprised to learn that it was an old mancini tune from the 60s. i was, in turn, surprised that they knew the tune but nothing else about it.

also fucik is something i can cross off my lifetime mystery list. solved! thread delivers

Where did they think it was from?

that's the funny part: none of them knew! they all recognized the tune, but had no idea where it came from. when i pulled it up on my phone, they were all also equally surprised to learn that it was a three minute long song — one of them said they thought it was a "from an old commercial jingle or something"!

Tbf, a lot of people my age probably thought/think it came from an 80s cartoon and not Peter Sellers movies from the 60s.

There’s a whole section in the book Devil in the White City about the genesis of that there’s a place in France fake middle eastern melody.

Would this count? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljOMXgfflRI

Music for documentaries about Russia.

Good ol' "Funeral March of a Marionette".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pOXhAF7L0I

(Go to :44 for the familiar part.)

The quintessential summer drinking-by-the-pool music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJoWh-0E6wQ

Walter Wanderley - "Summer Samba"

Also available with lyrics as "So Nice," seemingly tailor made for Astrud Gilberto (although it probably wasn't)

I didn't know that "The Typewriter," "The Syncopated Clock" and "Sleigh Ride" were all Leroy Anderson.

The man loved his clip-clop tick-tock percussion.

That clip-clop part of Sleigh Ride is my least favorite thing about Christmas.

wow that Gounod tune - honestly expected it to be someone better known, like Tchaikovsky. Advertisers must know the origins of all these by heart

more commonly known in the UK as 'Sir Digby Chicken Caesar' but originally the theme to Dick Barton, the Devil's Galop should be included here

https://youtu.be/e7bsL00aCGg

Music Box Dancer by Frank Mills probably belongs here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LRsYn9ufY0

^ holy shit that tune just gave me a concentrated blast of childhood nostalgia

This seems like a good spot to see if someone can identify this piece of music that pops into my head every once in while. I think it's from a cartoon, but I don't know if it's an older pre-existing piece, some library music, or something from a very specific show. Anyways here's my half-assed attempt at singing it:
https://voca.ro/1gTKrpYRY2n1

It seems to exist in a similar space in my mind as Colonel Bogey March (also know as the Bridge over River Kwai Theme), Theme from The Great Escape, and the Old Spice jingle. I also might be something really obvious.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOjTNuuEVw

great thread idea! i was at a relative's organ recital(!) and the best bit was watching the audience reaction when they recognised what was written down in the program as "J.S.Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor". top marks went to the kid in front who said excitedly "it's the Dracula song!!!"

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Thursday, September 17, 2020 7:13 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

When I saw Yes in 1984, by far the biggest applause of the night was when Tony Kaye played this during his otherwise interminable organ solo. It's one of two moments of that show I have not-horrible memories of; the other moment was the Bugs Bunny cartoons in lieu of an opening act.

I assume most US ilxors over...30?...40?...are familiar with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXRxHorYcOQ

What blew my mind was how it was edited down from this, by Morton Stevens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-zi3texPEE

It's the In A Silent Way of US network TV bumpers!

Thanks thomasintrouble! Somehow I didn't expect the song in my head to be from Gold Diggers of 1933, but I'm guessing I probably heard an instrumental version of it somewhere else as well.

Holy crap, Tarfumes! Morton Stevens makes Mike Post look like a chump!

Someone should re-do the Police Woman theme with a little buffering animation over the freeze frames.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnlr8TyAZnc

So what's the origin of the little 'creeping round a spooky house' riff? As heard on the intro of "Strychnine" by The Sonics, but I remember it turning up in Scooby Doo or similar things. I'm guessing it didn't originate with Gerry Roslie and the lads?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g68n8EM8I4I

Good question!

And man, that CBS Special Presentation music. Reminds me of the Philly Action News theme I grew up with, which I just learned has lyrics, though my lizard brain tells me they would sometimes let the bumper music play a little longer and let some lyrics pop in ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFJ2yoTsBds

Wow. Replace the chorus vocals with Arthur Lee, get rid of the bongos, trim the horns a bit, and it’s a Forever Changes outtake.

Chicago’s Channel 2 News had a pretty great theme in the late ‘70s, with more time signatures than I can count (I think it’s mostly in...10/8?...no, that can’t be right). Composed by Dick Marx, father of Richard Marx:

https://youtu.be/MORXHtW2P14

And why do all these arrangements have bongos?

Hahah

That Boccherini one is like the classic "fancy restaurant theme." I'd say this sub category suits "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber. Is he known for anything else?

He is known for his gorgeous violin concerto, the second movement of which is exquisite, and appears in its entirety in the movie The Deep Blue Sea (w Rachel Weizs) as performed by Hilary Hahn

He is unknown for his settings of Langston Hughes, Joyce, and Rilke. A setting of a Rilke poem from 1950 likely directly inspired Morricone some fifteen years later?

https://youtu.be/nl8Lm5XO8dU

And why do all these arrangements have bongos?

Because bongos are awesome. See also: "Apache." Speaking of which, here are the Roots sampling that Philly Action News theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDqcGB3QgGM

RE: opening riff on Strychnine, seems it is called Mysterioso Pizzicato, “a piece of music whose earliest known publication was in 1914, when it appeared in an early collection of incidental photoplay music aimed at accompanists for silent films. The tune appeared as no. 89 in The Remick Folio of Moving Picture Music, vol. I, compiled and edited by the Danish-American composer J. Bodewalt Lampe and published on March 24, 1914 by Jerome H. Remick & Co., New York and Detroit.It is unclear whether Lampe himself was the composer or transcriber of the piece“
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterioso_Pizzicato

Sort of referenced in "Rat Race" by the Specials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmkMEoVb6rA

Plus bongos!

I have nothing against bongos in general, and especially not where “Apache” is concerned. It just struck me as an odd trend, not unlike the early ‘70s practice of having a harmon-muted trumpet and a flute play a line in unison. (I thought this occurred in the Bob Newhart theme, but it doesn’t, and now I’m wracking my brain trying to think of a good example of this.) (But the Bob Newhart theme had the best tom sound of any tv theme ever.)

https://youtu.be/V-PLEhiOeVA

My music education found me discovering, on a yearly basis, internalized pieces of music and realizing "oh, ok, so that's the name of that piece", just because they'd been played around so frequently without any accreditation. Old DOS games, cartoons, incidental music here and there, etc:

Daquin's "Le Cuckoo" is a low-grade piano piece that I'd heard dozens of times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ahfJnsrx18

CPE Bach's "Solfeggietto" is the same, I feel like I heard this piece a million times before it popped up in my piano book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6g-tWmOSso

Grieg's "Peer Gynt", already mentioned, is front-to-back familiar hits, pretty insane to discover that fact. What a shitty composer! lol. I liked him so much as a kid tho

I'm sure everyone knows that "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" is Handel and "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" is Mendelssohn, right?

This bit of ubiquitous cartoon music is often misattributed, but it's Lizst

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALqOKq0M6ho

hey grieg has plenty of good works for the piano

I don't love much of them. I used to adore Holberg Suite when I was a kid tho

What a shitty composer!

😢

FINE Grieg is OK

The cradle song at the end of Peer Gynt is really one of the loveliest melodies imaginable

nice one, zappi

I was actually just making my way through this video a couple weeks ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzOh9cTbX60

Haha, I didn't know that was really the theme for Philly Action News!

Move Closer To Your World /r/Philadelphia pic.twitter.com/W43RsJs6hO

— vmudream▒░ (@vmudream) August 28, 2018

this is a top-notch thread, made even better by the fact that this ^ got posted before anyone mentioned Erik Satie and his precious Gymnopédie

RE: opening riff on Strychnine, seems it is called Mysterioso Pizzicato, “a piece of music whose earliest known publication was in 1914, when it appeared in an early collection of incidental photoplay music aimed at accompanists for silent films. The tune appeared as no. 89 in The Remick Folio of Moving Picture Music, vol. I, compiled and edited by the Danish-American composer J. Bodewalt Lampe and published on March 24, 1914 by Jerome H. Remick & Co., New York and Detroit.It is unclear whether Lampe himself was the composer or transcriber of the piece“
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysterioso_Pizzicato🕸

kudos Old Lunch this is a fantastic thread

If it doesn't exist I sort of want to start a thread of songs with bongos.

Have we mentioned Sousa yet? I want to say the only Sousa songs everyone knows the name of are "The Washington Post March," "Semper Fidelis" (Marine core song) and "Stars and Stripes Forever," but he's got a bunch we also know, including "The Thunderer" and "The Liberty Bell," the latter the theme from Monty Python.

Here's a song that you know by heart, but might exist only in your head: in every cop show ever

This Ace compilation is loaded with this stuff:

https://img.discogs.com/tgLrQQVwEPw0wYmF6eHfVE31z_U=/fit-in/500x500/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5435108-1393275481-8808.jpeg.jpg

One that especially released a flood of dormant childhood associations for me, sort of a more sedate companion to <i>A Summer Place</i>'s blissful drift:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNSHR0aUhw8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E__Q4mmPKLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXi4kXPFBeI

Everybody knows "The Liberty Bell," but true Monty Python fans will recognize "Under the Double Eagle"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atxkuk6jnjA

Conrad Poohs and His Dancing Teeth

holy cow @ kpm Monday night football.

yeh KPM is home of the bangers, even ones that invade the screen from the side as UK ilxors of a certain age will remember

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2wo3JdHTWw

another killer KPM sports tune (with surprise guitar solo!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TMZivxjj34

At The Sign Of The Swinging Cymbal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33vc3U1X7co

im not sure how far sam spence's classic "nfl films" music has entered consciousness beyond the world of american football, but some of those might qualify for this thread. i know "forearm shiver" has been used in spongebob squarepants and probably in other cartoons too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p30QHbD8018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFUUiBMxPkA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yprqSr1-v3o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W12J7BYlj-E

this is my favorite one though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY1b2CzlELs

The hustle and bustle of the city in the middle of the day or at the morning rush, particularly in a stereotypical documentary from the 50s-60s-early 70s. Maybe real images shot on film, in contrast to the soundstage shots they are framing (if non-docu). Maybe with a slick male voiceover describing said hustle and bustle or setting the scene for the story. The music is loungey and fairly fast-paced and has a xylophone lead that always makes me think of the intro riff to "Mr. Sandman."

Is there a specific piece of music that fits this thread here? Or is it one of those that just exists in my head?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okQRnHvw3is

Offenbach - Infernal Galop, aka the Can Can music.

Here's my attempt at singing/humming the piece of music I mentioned earlier I'd like to identify..

I'm sure it used to be used a lot in cartoons and children's story tapes, usually to depict mysterious, sylvan, sneaking-around music - stuff like Little Red Riding Hood, or a baddy villain up to no good. Anyway, here's my attempt. First bit would be played on a double bass (I think), the next on a clarinet or oboe:

https://voca.ro/1jEnJAbqcfN9

Well, back on the sports theme from above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feoHV5JUbuo

that is remarkably similar to the Castlevania IV opening music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leupymROAls

Why have I ignored this thread for the last couple days? It's great.

I heard an NPR segment on library music about a year ago and they discussed the KPM stuff like Heavy Action. I think this is it.

Speaking of games, anyone know what the Atari Moon Patrol music is based on? Is it just a standard 12-bar blues tune, or is there more to it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3CrqmhDk2A

The hustle and bustle of the city in the middle of the day or at the morning rush, particularly in a stereotypical documentary from the 50s-60s-early 70s. Maybe real images shot on film, in contrast to the soundstage shots they are framing (if non-docu). Maybe with a slick male voiceover describing said hustle and bustle or setting the scene for the story. The music is loungey and fairly fast-paced and has a xylophone lead that always makes me think of the intro riff to "Mr. Sandman."

Is there a specific piece of music that fits this thread here? Or is it one of those that just exists in my head?

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, September 21, 2020 3:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

'Happy-Go-Lively' maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xELDqIyrtNA

(For Britishers or others who don't know "Sirius" has been used very often as pre-game player introduction music in the NBA most notably by the Michael Jordan era Chicago Bulls)

reminds me of the old Family Guy scene where he wishes he had his own theme music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKJlLz3eF2c

The hustle and bustle of the city in the middle of the day or at the morning rush, particularly in a stereotypical documentary from the 50s-60s-early 70s. Maybe real images shot on film, in contrast to the soundstage shots they are framing (if non-docu). Maybe with a slick male voiceover describing said hustle and bustle or setting the scene for the story. The music is loungey and fairly fast-paced and has a xylophone lead that always makes me think of the intro riff to "Mr. Sandman."

Until your last sentence I was thinking of an entirely different piece of music, one that always seems to show up in 1950s-1960s short documentary films of bustling city scenes. Sprightly music, not sure of the instrumentation, always with a (as you say) male voiceover: 'The modern city. A clean, vibrant place.' Dee doo dee, dee doo dee etc.

(For Britishers or others who don't know "Sirius" has been used very often as pre-game player introduction music in the NBA most notably by the Michael Jordan era Chicago Bulls)

As a Britisher it is familiar to me, the images it conjures up are more science than sports but I don't know if that's based on any actual usages.

moon patrol appears to just be an 8 bit version of the original (track 2 here)

https://vgmrips.net/packs/pack/moon-patrol-irem-m52

which has a creator listed (Ichiro Takagi) so was probably done for the game

and this https://www.computerarcheology.com/Arcade/MoonPatrol/MoonPatrolSound.html suggests that he wrote an entire language for translating these sounds into code for playback.

'Happy-Go-Lively' maybe?

xp to Old Lunch, yes! I don't know if that is always the exact piece in question, but it is for sure the vibe I have in mind and am describing. In any case, a worthy addition to this thread.

Now I want to know what Sam Weller is thinking of too

Glad I was able to summon one up!

Now the true boffins itt can get to work and figure out the origin of this one, which the internet in general doesn't seem to have worked out as of yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW7Op86ox9g

Ah god damn, I just spent ages trying to track down "the Egyptian sounding piece of music" and now I see it was addressed upthread. There's some interesting info in the description to this youtube of 'Streets of Cairo', though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A5yJ5Z2Ezw&ab_channel=SamuelStokes

xp that is the original music that played when the asp turned up to give Eve the fruit of knowledge

scratch that, it was composed by the first fish that crawled out the sea

CPE Bach's "Solfeggietto" is the same, I feel like I heard this piece a million times before it popped up in my piano book

I've only ever heard this used in Treasure Mountain. Same w/ Beethoven's Contredanses.

On that note:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5poSw7tFLB4

also this song that gets played (or used to get played) in sports stadiums:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5LW07FTJbI

which was taken from this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsorGbKwNlA

holy shit. I had no idea.

one thing i do know is that kernkraft 400 mixes absolutely incredibly with “shoot your shot” by divine

Enjoyable thread!

How about ubiquitous in trendy bars old instrumental funk tunes such as Cissy Strut or Green Onions? Bet the majority of the trendy bar visiting population could hum but not name them.

in response to greg fanoe's mention upthread, a mini-essay on chopsticks and its composer:

First of all (at least in the UK) there are TWO different pieces known as CHOPSTICKS — one of unknown authorship, the other the only published work (1877) by the 16-yr-old Euphemia Allen, pseudonym Arthur de Lulli (or below = de Lulu courtesy a scanning typo). Euphemia Allen’s brother Mozart Allen was a music publisher, which presumably helped establish the piece: as did its opening being very easy to play even if you can’t play anything else. The section after the opening — where it becomes more obviously waltz-like — is far less well known than the opening, except in one curious context (see below).

Chopsticks youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3m7BZ5tzeg

Chopsticks sheet music:
https://i.imgur.com/gZktCaK.jpg

The ”Chopsticks“ of unknown authorship is also (more properly?) known as Flohwalzer or FLEA WALTZ (and sometimes as CUTLETS), and is largely played on the black notes (see youtube below and sheet music below that). Also it’s not actually a waltz, bcz not in three time.

Flohwalzer youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6RJ5yalISo

Flohwalzer sheet music:
https://i.imgur.com/RyeG3n9.jpg

There is in addition a CUTLETS POLKA aka TATI TATI that was turned into variations by Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and others, with sections said to resemble Euphemia A’s Chopsticks: Paraphrases: 24 Variations et 15 petits pièces sur le thème favori et obligé:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x--S0JXg_k

Curious context: the theme music for Viv Stanshall’s SIR HENRY AT RAWLINSON END is a piece called Aunt Florrie’s Waltz — aka Flowalzer? — and credited to Stanshall. But its second measure is p clearly identical to the secondary theme in Euphemia A’s Chopsticks (which strikes me as a very Viv Stanshall type of joke):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RciT8ec1S1Y

'Flohwalzer' is what I always knew as 'Chopsticks' growing up. The existence of two 'Chopsticks' songs was very confusing for some time.

The dude in the OG Chopsticks video is playing with literal chopsticks in his right hand = massive kudos from me bro, fuck yeah my man.

oh shit!!!! he starts snapping his fingers and sticks during the 2nd verse too, SICK!

i mean if ever a pianowork needed props to rescue it

no disrespect to 16-yr-old euphemia

This keeps showing up on my spotify discover weekly so I'm pretty familiar with it by now, but it seems like for years I heard this all over the place (or a sampled version of it) without knowing what it was:

Moondog - Lament I, "Bird's Lament"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSimbyS_YlA

hey thanks OL for posting “happy-go-lively”, been wondering about it for years.. and thanks Lavator for bringing it up! :)

xp we had a short digression about this in the under 2 minutes songs poll–the song we've been hearing all our lives was "get a move on" by mr. scruff, which samples "bird's lament"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HamLxGxeDqI

https://youtu.be/zvesdlGe-EI

A question appropriate to this thread came up in the Macabre 'Gloom' thread. The melody from the chorus of Holidays of Horror...

https://youtu.be/mP2YV8OfAWs

It is the melody for the Chili's "happy happy birthday from all of us to you" song. Is it also the melody for '99 bottles of beer on the wall'?

Cliff Nobles - 'The Horse'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btHrhq4caiA

Been trying to track down this for a few days.

Keith Masfield - Funky Fanfare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P51cMstawuc

doubling back a bit but WOAH, "Music Box Dancer" is one of the major ice-cream truck themes here in NYC! i figured it was just an attempt by some in-house Softee composer to create something ice-creamy, while respecting the limitations of whatever inexplicably old-fashioned, duophonic mechanical synth tech they're using in those things.

best NYC ice-cream truck theme is Lambada mostly because I thought it was a Sun City Girls Song at first.

This one has lyrics, but I'm sure there are a lot of people who simply know Heart and Soul as "That song you learn when you're learning piano".

https://youtu.be/advQkt_8Pzs

And here's Tea For Two Cha Cha which I hear pop up in places from time to time, and only knew it at The Offspring's Intermission music
https://youtu.be/UaMZPjyG3ys

In the UK, there are a load of old radio theme tunes that are always used to evoke the 40s or 50s

Puffin' Billy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtGUaScpSbg

In Party Moood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqsp413SXuQ

Devil's Gallop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2eqX93umXo

The Dick Barton one was used in Monty Python a bit I think.

CBS bumper etc. reminds me that I never knew the ABC movie of the week theme was a Burt Bacharach composition named after his daughter called “Nikki” until we did this thread: Wishin' and Votin' - the BURT BACHARACH SONGBOOK Poll Results
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM-Vkd7On2Q

🚨 🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨 🚨
That video features the added bonus of a brief appearance by William Windom

But the ABC 4:30 Movie theme I don't know who wrote it or what its title is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2es-lfRSDOI

Oh wait, I have met the ad agency guy who was in charge of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfksiAUfQ6M

Luciano Michelini - frolic (from the post-golden television era; has become a meme tune)

Does anyone else find it mildly amusing that the artist behind “Music Box Dancer” is named Frank Mills?

Following on from "Heart and Soul" I think "Happy Trails" (as an instrumental) often signifies cowboyness even without vocals.

Indeed it does.

CBS bumper etc. reminds me that I never knew the ABC movie of the week theme was a Burt Bacharach composition named after his daughter called “Nikki” until we did this thread: Wishin' and Votin' - the BURT BACHARACH SONGBOOK Poll Results🕸
📹

Posting the once ubiquitous commercial for 120 Music Masterpieces, starring the actor, not the composer or guitarist, named John Williams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP9u_7eSlTQ

Ooh, here's one I don't know if we've covered: the kind of Russian Cossack death-march dirge that you hear pop up all time. I mostly recently was reminded of it at around the 3-minute mark of (forgive me) this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQQlCaEo1l0

Where does this come from?

"Song of the Volga Boatmen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tw3g88JtWA

Wow, thanks!

lol beat me to it

Holy shit, is that where the band got its name!?!?

I was watching "Dawn of the Dead" tonight, and when the bikers first break into the mall there's this music in the background that sounded very familiar. And then it hit me: unless I'm totally wrong, it's the same music from the opening credits of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"! I did some minimal digging and found this quote:

Terry Jones: We realized we needed mock-heroic music but at that stage we couldn’t afford to record more music (for the titles) so the only thing I could do was go to a music library, DeWolfe in London, and I spent weeks sorting out bits of music.

With some more minimal digging I found the title on some comp called "De Wolfe Music Presents: Music from Monty Python on the Holy Grail."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJa4xs71nco

No doubt George Romero grabbed the same cheap stuff from that same music library.

Indeed! Included in an upcoming Dawn of the Dead box:

The Complete De Wolfe library Cues Part 1

The Complete De Wolfe Library Cues Part 2

this song, which i've always known as "that public domain incidental music that they use in always sunny in philadelphia" is trending on tiktok right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QQ_QHlTalk

Found out today that this, which is basically how I count to 12 mentally, is by the Pointer Sisters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUL4T8WcFdA

Edvard Grieg, "Morning Mood" from Peer Gynt Suite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMs0rNtBZJk

This is called "The Washington Post March"?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peidgSY8A50

democracy dies in starched pants