songs that sound like other songs

The drums & bass intro to "Pretty Green" (1980)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GSDQSRNR1s

...has always reminded me of the intro to "Swingtown" (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jGYx0hMjM0

Interesting

the canned latin-style music that plays over every arrested development episode credits always reminds me of mr. bungle's "sweet charity"

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

the part im thinking of starts 50 or so seconds in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldh04Olynrw

aw yeah and the theme from Black Books is so close to a rip off of a particular Tom Waits tune too

The beginning of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIbLVC3C-5g

Really sounds a lot like the beginning of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhIsAZO5gl0

“If I Was Your Girlfriend” sounds like The Brothers Johnson’s “I’ll Be Good To You.”

“Big Tall Wall (Version 1)” outro sounds a lot like “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”

"when i get low i get high"
"puttin' on the ritz"
"istanbul (not constantinople)"

all three have a way of interchanging when any of the songs is stuck in my head (cf. earworm mashups)

Is "The Joker" a ripoff of "Soul Sister" by Alan Toussaint, or is that just a standard chord progression sequence?

By the songwriter's own admission, Mac Davis's "It's Hard to Be Humble" and "The Mexican Hat Dance"

Also "Make 'Em Laugh" from Singin' in the Rain is an outrageously blatant ripoff of Cole Porter's "Be a Clown"

D’oh!

I had a mashup of Beatles' Get Back and Talking Heads' Take Me To The River in my head yesterday

“Bang the Drum All Day” has a “Rescue Me” break.

John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over" - "But when I see you, darling/It's like we both are falling..."

The Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby" - "But she looks in my eyes/And makes me realize..."

― timellison, Thursday, June 18, 2020 3:27 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

that's somewhat of a melodic cliche of 50s rock ballads that both of those songs borrow

― ACABincalifornia (voodoo chili), Thursday, June 18, 2020 3:53 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

You'd have to name me something else that uses that exact same sequence of four chords AND has the melody starting on the sixth scale degree, on beat two of the measure, then a seventh to the fifth scale degree, before descending in stepwise motion. Both songs do the exact same thing.

― timellison, Thursday, June 18, 2020 4:30 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

i finally found another song that does this. it's also a beach boys homage fwiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmWN_kczZa4
Jan & Dean - Like a Summer Rain

A Beatles podcast I listen to pointed out how much Happy Xmas (War Is Over) sounds like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GplMArh4FRk

omg that's brazen
It looks like it's a traditional folk song, changed up by Peter Paul and Mary?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpJ2i-31c0A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n6O8m8Hbh0

Or according to wiki this was the earlier version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9D3Jw0u3FM

occurred to me the other day that in a sort of oblique way the Cardigans' "My Favourite Game" reminds me of "UFO" by ESG

Further information re Happy Xmas on this thread:
https://dsulpy.proboards.com/thread/6309/angel-makin-whoopee

refs this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rahTKCeBZ2M

“Indiana Wants Me” and “Darling Be Home Soon” both have a similar little vocal hook: “you...to talk to.”

what came first, hendrix or the who, the magic bus or manic depression?

I realised recently that Robert Smith must've been inspired by Fun Boy Three & Bananarama's "It Aint What You Do It's The Way That You Do It" to write "The Lovecats". He even names it as one of his favorite songs from the 80s.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OylJq6L-Wd0

had never heard the FBT / BB song. Something about it reminds me of the Macarena

Was it on an ad?

apparently it's a cover of an old jazz song I hadn't heard before

when i hear this ub40 song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpNlM9eF5hA

i can't help but sing to myself "it's a marvelous night for a moondance"

So I'm not sure this actually sounds like another song at all, but you know the guitar-and-saxophone bit at the end of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Want You In My Room?" When I first heard it I was convinced I'd heard it before, and I thought it must be lifted from a Dire Straits song, but I can't find one that fits and I'm starting to think I must be crazy. Does anyone know what I could possibly be thinking of?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY1RsDpRmIU

Not heard that song before, sounds a bit like Kitten.
end doesn't sound like Dire Straits to me, sorry...

there's definitely something 1986 about it. i want to say something like 'When The Going Gets Tough' or 'Sledgehammer' but that's not quite right

A lot of things in that song sound familiar - there's a bit of "Heart and Soul" to the drums. The guitar figure at the end reminds me of "Sexual Healing."

Also consider "Typical Male." The sax, yes, but also the countermelody in the chorus has a similar descending line.

I went first to the last 45 seconds of "Waiting on a Friend", but that wasn't it either.

What about "How Will I Know" or "Who's Zooming Who"?

Or Steve Winwood "Higher Love" - similar vibe

I am still voting T'Pau but I see loads of other DNA mixed in.

"Hawaii 5-0" and "Solitary Man" sound alike to me for some reason.

I definitely hear "Higher Love" in the CRJ song. (The synth part at the end doesn't remind me in anything of particular, though.)

lol, I think that Carly Rae song reminds me of the Field Mice. Sort of the cross between their version and the Saint Etienne version:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw32-oDZ0kQ

Lots of Higher Love/Windwood in there, too.

I just realized today that ELO's "Showdown" is basically "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"

John Lennon pointed that out to me decades ago as an FM guest DJ.

Oh wait, that was a different song, "Tightrope."

"Higher Love" OTM

Thanks for all the ideas! So I think I've finally figured out what I must have been thinking of. It's not quite the same, but it's the closest I can get. The end of this live version of Portobello Belle, starting around the 4-minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj4HLd81Z18

was listening to the second howlin' wolf record and it struck me just how blatantly marc bolan lifted the beginning of "you'll be mine" for "jeepster"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hao0yqLAICU

Love that Woof song

"do you believe in rapture" by sonic youth has a strikingly similar melody to "beast of burden" by the stones.

I heard what I assume is the new Foo Fighters song on the radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1G6-RUz3OA

And after a few seconds was disappointed it was not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daeqb6f7GrY

am also disappointed that most bands on the radio are not big country.

otm