h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sitting here, working on some stuff for . And I got stuck with half an earworm. Like half a worm in an apple, it's worrying...

Maybe you can help.

Here's a song from a new Broadway musical called 'Dear Evan Hanson'. The song is called 'For Forever'. The chorus starts around 0:55:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkdPRcY0k4o

What's half-stuck in my head is the idea that there's another song with almost exactly the same chorus, musically. Can anybody help me remember what it is?

I'm not accusing them of plagiarism or anything: I doubt if anyone would care. It's just bugging me.

Am I half-remembering something, or is it just that all pop music sounds generic these days?

Thanks,

I sympathise - I know exactly what you mean about half an earworm! I sometimes start singing a Queen song in my head (although I couldn't tell you which one as I don't sing it when I'm on the computer) and it segues into something else every time - puzzling indeed!

I listened to the chorus, and it very vaguely reminds me of something too - sounds a bit Disney to me, perhaps...

It does. But then, I avoid listening to Disney whenever possible, so I'm not sure that could be what's trying to get in my head...

Wait, I'm thinking, 'Indie...'

Maybe it's something by Five for Fighting?

"Don't cry out loud" has a similar leap in its chorus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Zz_UNFLmw

Pop music all sounds the same. No, really, it does. This isn't just me being a geezer. "Why those kids today, what with their repetitive music and candy-cutter pop stars..."

Pop music (and country, and other genres) are becoming even more repetitive as that's what sells, familiarity. And the music moguls know it.
http://youtu.be/AsQUQ8P8c-A
http://youtu.be/MN23lFKfpck
http://youtu.be/FY8SwIvxj8o

Paul, you're right - that's the interval, I think - but I was thinking I'd heard more than that. The interval, the vocal tic, AND the rhythmic beats. Dum-DEE-duh-dum-duh-duh-duh-duh...

And BG, you are so right, especially about 'country' music. My bro in law thinks I don't like what comes out of his pickup's stereo because it's country. (He labours under the misapprehension that I only listen to Baroque opera and Tuvan throat singing.) I don't like it because it's NOT country. Where's the wit? The clever wordplay? The irony?

Bring back songs like this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc08gY8wfVc

I often tell people that I don't like country, but that's not altogether true. I like that song quite well. And there are some fine country music artists here in Texas, like Jessie Dayton, who I've had the pleasure of meeting. I also met this man in his prime, Country Dick Montana of the Beat Farmers.
http://youtu.be/OBow8518hMc (not for everyone)
I would catch them when they would come into Houston in the early '90s as my friends' band would open for them typically.


And then, this year, on my lonely drive to Austin for a Christmas (and 50th birthday) away from home, I got introduced to a song that not only belies my loathing for country music, but also my abhorrence for Christmas music as well. Robert Earl Keane's "Merry Christmas From the Family" now edges out The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" as my favorite holiday song.
http://youtu.be/P37xPiRz1sg

I love that Christmas song... 'I cain't remember how I'm kin to them'. That had me. And the motor home knocking out the Christmas lights...

Years ago - visiting an uncle in Memphis. Lounging around in the a/c because it was hot outside. My cousin, about 19, to his mother, 'Maw-muh, kin you'n'daddy watch the baby whahl me'n'Cindy [his wife] go down to the coh-nuh fur a moon pah'n'uh RC?'

That song is the musical equivalent of that groove, I think...

Actually, that basic sequence of notes has been kicking around for a *long* time.

Here we have it at the beginning of Heinrich Schutz's "Sing to the Lord a new song"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHKIlwhXSIk

It's doh, sol, mi fa sol

A truncated version [doh sol mi] was once NBC's theme song
http
s://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsXN_GaPL9U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsXN_GaPL9U

Fixed that for you.

Thanks, Baron Grim. Turns out I was wrong about that. The NBC theme was do, la, fa. But anyway....

As I said, I was looking for the same rhythmic pattern as well as the same intervals. And I think I *may* have found the other end of the earworm...

Five for Fighting's '100 Years to live':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbmurb5Lf98

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkdPRcY0k4o

Side by side, what do you think?

I don't get it, but I'm up way late and my brain lacks zip.

Specifically, the choruses (chori?)?

http://youtu.be/xkdPRcY0k4o?t=53s
http://youtu.be/gbmurb5Lf98?t=47s


They definitely feel the same, if not note for note.

Maybe it's like the 'millennial whoop' in that video you posted, BG.

I have a theory: they're only listening to the ornamentation, not the song itself. It's like collecting 'memes', which is all anybody does in literature these days.

Some of my theories are not worth the spam they're etched into.

Spam® etching is a lost art.

Indeed. I wrote up a spam recipe: A87889630

On Saturday, Elektra was making this for the church social. She was amazed at how big a bowlful one tin of Spam made when grated...awesome stuff...

I don't eat Spam anymore. I gave up pork. SPAM reportedly is short for "SPiced hAM".

So why didn't they call the pork free version, "SPURKEY"!?

I can't imagine. It's so euphonious. Maybe somebody would've written a song about it. With a millennial whoop in.

Stick to ice cream - from Turkey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2f09JgbZW4