Classical Melodies That Became Pop Hits....

George Grand

They used a lot of great classical themes and melodies in the cartoons we grew up with, but does anybody know of any heavy hitter classical melodies that were turned into pop hits?

For example, one of my favorite tunes of all-time is "Don't You Know" recorded by both Della Reese and Vic Damone. It is the recurring melody from La Boheme.

Is anybody aware of any others? I also remember something on the Moog synthesizer that was a Beethoven thing. Something about Ode to Man's Desire or some ****. It sucked so that one doesn't count. I'm thinking it would be cooler than **** if "Louie, Louie" or "Wipeout" were adapted from the classics.

TheReaper

Lover's Concerto

I found that one, just so I could add this cover, which doesn't count. The number one single October 9, 1976 'A Fifth Of Beethoven'

Sami

Not pop but "The Doors - The Severed Garden" is from Albinoni's "Adagio In G Minor". Great piece.

John K.

George, I'd suspect that there're dozens, if not hundreds, of examples. Somebody more familiar with the pop genre could come up with more, but yesterday I was listening to the Rachmaninoff 2d Piano Concerto, and the song "Full Moon and Empty Arms" draws its theme from that. Another thought is that when Elvis sang "It's Now or Never", anybody familiar with Di Capua's O sole Mio would certainly recognize it. Not exactly a "pop hit", but when comedian Allan Sherman used to sing "Hello Mudah, Hello Fadah", he just borrowed the music from Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours.

dorokusai

George - You may try www.allmusic.com as a resource. It's extremely well documented. If the song or theme has been covered, there is usually a link under that artist/composer.

George Grand

Thanks for the responses, especially Doro for the good link. The La boheme thing I love. It has been used in Ragu spaghetti sauce commercials, The Della Reese thing, etc. I love Della Reese, sassy, perky thing that she was.

At work my desk rig is constantly tuned to the classical station, Temple University Radio 90.1 on the FM dial. Sometimes I just get floored by things like that when they pop up.

cfrizz

A Fifth Of Beethoven.

Tour2ma

Couple that occurred to me right off were from fellow Buckeye, Eric Carmen (of The Raspberries). Read an article decades ago on him. He was a huge Rachmaninoff fan and borrowed his themes for "All by Myself" and a couple other "hits" which escape me right now...

Also know that Yes, ELP and ELO drew heavily from the classical repertoire, but often they directly used the original music, rather than themed off of it. So it may not really count.

One group that kind of straddled the above fence was Renaissance. Their "Song of Scheherazade" (sp?) was clearly based on Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade", but included many variations... enough to qualify anyway.

Get hold of a copy of the complete score of Prokofiev's "Lt. Kije Suite" and you'll hear three or four modern tunes. Been a while, but one I distinctly remember was Sting's "Russians"

Couple others I know of:

• "Annie's Song" by John Denver based on a Tchaikovsky piece - shocked the hell out of me when I read that.
• "Hook" by Blues Traveler - Pachelbel's Canon (easy one to ID)

EDIT: Not remembering a couple bugged the **** out of me so I Googled "pop music that is based upon classical themes" and hit the motherload...