I was thinking about how Rocky uses Eye Of the Tiger, even though the rest of the score is original, and I was wondering how common it is for musicals to do that? What other shows use already written songs in shows with otherwise original scores (as in, NOT jukebox musicals) Off the top of my head, I can only think of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the Lion King, and "To be With You" in Love's Labours' Lost. Are there any others?
Ghost used "Unchained Melody," 9 to 5 used the title song, Shrek used "I'm a Believer," The Wedding Singer used a song from the movie too and I think the Grinch musical used two or three songs from the original cartoon. It's not uncommon for an already established title to use an original score but keep a popular song from the previous incarnation.
I still maintain, among it's numerous faults in the end, CHAPLIN should have used "Smile." I'm sure there were rights issues, but that was a missed opportunity (among others in that show's second act.)
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
I was going to say The Lion King samples a little Billy Joel....but as I was typing this I realized that I'm not sure if the stage show actually used The Lion sleeps tonight. I haven't seen the stage show since 2001, so it may just be in the film.
"I was going to say The Lion King samples a little Billy Joel....but as I was typing this I realized that I'm not sure if the stage show actually used The Lion sleeps tonight. I haven't seen the stage show since 2001, so it may just be in the film."
West End musical: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" original score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, other than one song "Pure Imagination" from the movie.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was not written for Meet Me In St. Louis. Also, I don't think "Almost Like Being in Love" was written for "Brigadoon."
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was definitely written for the original film of Meet Me In St. Louis, although the film and musical do use a number of popular songs from the period, such as "Under The Bamboo Tree" and "Skip To My Lou".
"Almost Like Being in Love" definitely had its formal debut in BRIGADOON, even if it was original written for something else.
My Man in the movie of Funny Girl (and I think one other interpolation?)
A8 mentioned After the Ball for Show Boat, but the New Year's Eve section had one other well known interpolation (not by Kern--so we won't count Bill, which wasn't a hit anyway) in Goodbye My Lady Love. Of course various versions do and don't use this, but the original did. The 1928 London production replaced it with How'd You Like to Spoon With Me--a much earlier song by Kern that sound pretty British music hall (as it was performed by Lansbury in the Kern biopic.)