13 Songs that Interpolate other songs 

I didn't copy my friend's homework, I just "interpolated" it.

Land down under by Men at Work has a flute interpolation of “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” which ended up in a completely nonsensical lawsuit

I remember when Rich Girl came out, and I would sing Fiddler on the Roof and people asked me why I was singing a Gwen Stefani song.

“It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.” - Jean-Luc Godard

David Bowie quoted "I heard the news today, oh boy" from "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles into his song, "Young Americans."

I guess you could just call it "quoting" like jazz musicians do.

Elvis was famous for interpolation. O Sole Mio became It's Now or Never, Plaisir d'Amour became I Can't Help Falling In Love (WIth You) and Aura Lee became Love Me Tender.

One example has to be "Talk" by Coldplay, interpolated from Kraftwerk's "Computer Love". The iconic keyboard riff is moved to a guitar. Coldplay famously wrote to Kraftwerk to ask permission, and got an envelope back with a piece of paper inside with just the word YES on it. Both are excellent in my view, and I'm not a Coldplay fan at all.

I frickin love this series. Keep it up David.

Eric Prydz’ “Call On Me” is based on Steve Winwood’s “Valerie” and originally used a sample, but Steve liked it so much re-recorded his vocals for the song

My understanding is Dr. Dre is said to have preferred re-recording “samples” for better control over the sound, but methinks other motives were in play.

Radiohead 'Creep' and 'The air that I breathe' Comes to mind. It's an interesting one, because they've interpolated from the Hollie's version which isn't the original to begin with; and so ended up settling credits with Albert Hammond for the original, even though they'd ironically probably never even heard that version. Then Lana Del Rey interpolated Creep with 'Get Free' - creating a unique situation of an interpolated song three times removed from the original. Lord knows how they'd decide royalties on that one

As someone with a maths degree, i would call most of these example extrapolation rather than interpolation.

I can't believe no one has mentioned "All Summer Long" and "Werewolves of London" and "Sweet Home Alabama"

Excellent video and a real eye opener I'll be happy for 'Another 13 songs that Interpolate other songs..' when you're ready.

Kid Rock - All Summer Long. Singing about singing "Sweet Home Alabama" and using its riff... while also using the riff from "Werewolves Of London".

Now, when I try to remember a song and start hearing it in my head, my neural implant recognizes that as an interpolation of a protected song and sends a copyright strike violation report to the holder and also debits my bank account accordingly.

The blue Monday/shut up and drive interpolation blew my mind when I first found out about it-then I couldn’t unhear it. glad you included that one!

For anyone interested in musical theatre examples, Michael in the Bathroom from Be More Chill interpolates I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston and I Don’t Need Your Love from Six interpolates Independent Woman by Destiny’s Child

Please more interpolation videos, this was so interesting!

I would call it just "quoting". Interpolating in mathematics is composing a function (basically, a polynomial) based on several values (in several points) of some original function. Solution of similar musical task would be rather interesting.

Can you tackle "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas interpolating/ripping-off "I'm Going to Leave You" by Journey? Journey opened for Kansas in 1975 and played the song as a work in progress. "Look into the Future" came out in January 1976, and "Leftoeverture" came out in October 1976.

I think we could say “whiter shade of pale” by procol harum is a good interpolation of “air” by Bach. There’s an incredible Ava Max/Bon Jovi mashup on RU-vid.

On the Dresden Dolls' first album, Amanda Palmer has a couple clever moments of interpolation. The reason I call them "clever" is that they rise organically out of the lyrics. In "Good Day," she sings "I'd like to do more than survive, I'd like to rub it in your face." At the moment she sings this, the music and melody match up with Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." Similarly, in a later track called "Jeep Song," she is lamenting about frequently seeing cars that remind her of her ex-lover's red Jeep. She sings "I see a red Jeep and I want to paint it black." At that moment, the music matches the verse of "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones. The reason I like these two examples is that neither feels like an arbitrary reference for reference's sake. Both completely fit the story, mood, and harmony of the song. It feels like she was writing lyrics and realized she could incorporate the reference, rather than building her song around the reference the way some of these other examples seem to have originated. It feels closer to the Mariah Carey example than the Train example.

One of my fave: “I’m So Sexy” by Right Said Fred interpolating Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun”…it’s in there. Subtle but there.

A great interpolation is Sugarbabes “Freak like me” which repurposed Gary Numan’s “Are Friends Electric”. I love the original but the slightly faster tempo and more modern synth sounds in Sugarbabes version are great too.

Take Me Home Tonight, Eddie Money “The song's chorus interpolates the Ronettes' 1963 hit "Be My Baby", with original vocalist Ronnie Spector providing uncredited vocals and reprising her role.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Me_Home_Tonight_(song))

also the ending of "build god then we'll talk" by panic at the disco interpolates "my favourite things" in very cooool way!

Nile Rodgers has said in interview that he was sure Rapper's Delight DID sample the recording of Good Times, in particular compare string motif at 4.19 on Rapper's Delight 12" to 3.47 on Good Times.

"Rockollection" by Laurent Voulzy, a French number 1 in 1977, is about 4 and a half minutes of this.

I love your videos! I love your explanations of the differences and the similaritys, and almost always there's a new song going into my playlist after watching your videos!

Excellent, David, thank you.

My question is: can the original artist (or his publisher) just say no, you can't use my song?

I actually learned this definition of interpolation from the liner notes of Fall Out Boy’s "Infinity On High" album! They interpolate Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in their song Hum Hallelujah

Another fantastic video! Thanks so much David 😁

The Madonna song "Cherish" quotes the opening line of the 60s song "Cherish" by the band The Association.

One of my favorite examples is Chinese Cafe / Unchained Melody by Joni Mitchell.

All By Myself by Eric Carmen also credits Sergei Rachmaninoff and with very good reason. I actually never know that Rachmaninoff was credited but just looked it up.

What a great video! Thank you David!!

Great explanation, and insightful examples - top notch content, as always!

Islands in the Stream was interpolated to Ghetto Superstar. It's the song that taught me about the practice. Also Amish Paradise being a parody of an interpolation is so good. How many layers deep can you go?

Joni Mitchell's "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody" interpolates Unchained Melody and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, in the same way as in the Mariah Carey example- "We'd be Playing, 'You give your love so sweetly,' one more time". But the COOL THING IS Joni sang on the original Carole King recording of WYSLMT

another example i thought of is the 2017 hit Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man, which interpolated the 1961 hit Please Mr. Postman by The Marvelettes ^

Great vid. Answered a bunch of questions I've asked before in my head.

Billy Joel used the melody and harmony from the second movement of Beethoven's Sonata 'Pathétique for the chorus of This Night from An Innocent Man album. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine were successfully (I think) sued by The Rolling Stones for using the words 'Goodbye Ruby Tuesday', not even the melody or the harmony from the song, in their 1991 song 'After the Watershed'. I think the same song also interpolated the bass riff from Satisfaction.

Does anyone write original material anymore?

Great video! I had no idea about these melodies being interpelated.

Excellently researched examples and as always, well presented.

interpolition is just sampling trying to clean up it's act

"Tainted Love" by Gloria Jones was covered in the 80's by Soft Cell and its accompaniments were interpolated by Fine Young Cannibals in "Good Things." The chorus from "If You could Read My Mind" by Gordon Lightfoot was used in Whitney Houston's "The greatest Love of All."

Great video! Thank you so much :)

I come from a STEM background, and my initial expectation of "interpolation" was a bit different, heheh. Anyway, great video as always.

Thank you, very interesting video!👏

The Beatles "All My Loving" begins with a melody from Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Kathy Waltz" (the last piano line before Paul Desmond's first solo)

Nice video, always gave me new knowledge in music

Great episode! Danke

This was such an interesting video! My mind has been blown 🤯 subscribed!!

Great video! Very entertaining

woah! I love Train and specifically love the song "Play that song" The amount of research you put into this is astounding! I've been watching your videos for quite a while now especially the ones where you talk about the Beatles....

A melody from The Lion Sleeps Tonight (which has its own convoluted history) was interpolated into REMs The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight.

These videos have proved instrumental in the noteworthy improvements in my compositions.

I had an advert before the video and it was this guy on it! Algorithmic man.

boygenius's "Cool About It" interpolates S&G's "The Boxer," and both songs are amazing

Thank you so much the video was great 🩵

My favorite interpolation is Gloria (In Excelsis Deo) by Patti Smith, which heavily interpolates the chorus and instrumental backing to Gloria by Them.

I think that "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas interpolates Dick Dale's "Misirlou", which itself interpolates an older folk song.

Amazing video. Thank you so much to the RU-vid algorithm for blessing me today lol

Joe Jackson's Ever After starts with Love Here To Stay. Breaking Us in Two starts with Day by Day. Is She Really Going Out With Him is from Leader of the Pack. He also does answer songs.

amazing!!

I don’t know if this counts as “interpolation”, but another famous rock track, the Doors “Light my fire”, also based on the chord progression of “My Favorite Things”, mostly inspired by John Coltrane’s instrumental recording.

A really great, and perhaps unusual, example of interpolation is in Queen's quite brilliant song 'It's a Hard Life' - the intro is based on an aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci.

Interestingly, the strings from the „Dernier Domicile Connu“ film were also sampled by both Missy Eliot on „All ´N My Grill“ and Mix Master Mike on „Surprize Packidge“, both released in 1999. Maybe that‘s where Robbie‘s songwriting team got the idea.

Good man David thank you for this informative piece on interpolation ❤😊 Paint the town red is a interpolation on the the song Walk on by dionne warwick 😊

These interpolations drive me completely wild. I always hear them when listening to music and repeating the part over and over trying to figure out where the interpolation cones from. The strangest I've found must be the Beat from the song "Alles neu" by german singer Peter Fox in the song "The Phoenix" by Fall Out Boy

So the difference interpolation and plagiarism is whether the original writers and composers got credit in the new version?

That was great!

I always wondered if the opening melody of the Joe Jackson song Breaking Us in Two, where he sings “Don’t you feeling trying something new” interpolates the opening melody of Badfinger’s song Day After Day, where they sing “I remember finding out about you.”

My favourite is the Queens of the Stone Age song “You’re So Vague” being an interpolation/reimagining of “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon.

Joybringer by Manfred Man is a rock interpolation of Holst's Jupiter with lyrics added, and it's brilliant!

Fascinating stuff. I grew up listening to music from Papua New Guinea. While none of the stuff I listened to regularly did it, it was quite common for some artists to interpolate melodies from famous Western songs. Examples I remember hearing included “Can’t help falling in love with you” by Elvis, “Heart of Glass” by Blondie, “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, and “Fernando” by ABBA. Needless to say, none of those artists ever got royalties (or even knew the interpolations existed). I’d be curious if this also is common in other third world country music industries.

You could do a whole video on replayed tracks (and the group that have become to go to ones for it in the UK) - but specifically for when the original samplers wanted more control over a sample. Chemical Brothers - We Got To Try has this exact effect because they wanted to use more of the vocal in the track but couldn't mix it well enough, so the replay meant they could isolate parts they needed.

Music videos always make me think of how Pink Floyd might be able to fit into their purview. For them, I know Syd Barrett had the more likely times of interpolation. "Interstellar Overdrive", for instance, has its main riff, which I know people have compared to a bit of the theme song to the show Steptoe and Son. But looking past his era, "One of These Days" has been pointed out to have a bit of the Doctor Who theme song in it. But there's also instances of what are really more of rewrites, but I wanted to mention them: "Breathe" from Dark Side of the Moon shares a title and opening line with the earlier Roger Waters solo song "Breathe" from Music from the Body (a soundtrack collaboration with Ron Geesin, though the two primarily didn't appear on the others' songs), and there's also an interesting instance of Roger giving Marianne Faithfull a song he'd written called "Incarceration of a Flower Child", which opens with a line that can be found in "Your Possible Pasts" from the Pink Floyd album The Final Cut (which was basically a Roger Waters solo album anyways). I mean, another Floyd song which has involvement with interpolation is "Fearless (Interpolating You'll Never Walk Alone)" from Meddle, but that seems more of a sample, as the "interpolated" bit was recorded from the crowd at a soccer game, and they likely had no idea they were even being recorded, let alone for a Pink Floyd album. Thinking of Roger, though, he did also interpolate during his solo career. Particularly I can think of the song "Folded Flags" (from the When the Wind Blows soundtrack), which interpolated the song "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix.

Another simply masterful one is Joni Mitchell's Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody. It has such a good reason too, it's reminiscing about listening to Unchained Melody in a cafe as a young person. Just perfectly done

How about the chorus to "I Really Don't Care" by Demi Lavato vs. "Shadows of the Night" by Pat Benetar? That's one of my favorite examples.

My favourite song that includes two interpolations is Push It by Garbage - Obviously, Push It by Salt n Pepa and Don’t Worry Baby by the Beach Boys. Shirley Manson recorded the Beach Boys line after they were going to use a sample of Brian Wilson. When they have performed it live they often use the sample in the background to accompany Shirley

My preference for any form of referencing another work is when it serves a creative artistic purpose, which sampling rarely does. Three examples of this in reference to interpolations are: Metallica "quotes" America from West Side Story in Don't Tread On Me, inviting the listener to think more deeply about the themes of the song. Michael Jackson interpolates and overlays two sounds -- a drum fill and a strings hit -- from Yes's Owner Of A Lonely Heart in his song DS so that when it makes you think of that song title, it leads you to add your own commentary to the personality of the main character of DS. On his new album I/O, Peter Gabriel begins his life-doesn't-last-forever song Playing For Time with Chopin's Funeral March. I like to see artists be clever and trust the intelligence of their listeners when they use these kinds of tools.

One that I love is Rosalia's interpolation of Archangel by Burial on her song CANDY Such a nice homage to a classic UK Garage song

Gooooo 1mil subs!!

good, clear explanation of sampling vs interpretation! - next time you could explain the difference between a building and an airplane

One of the finest, and best known, interpolations in pop is "One Love/People Get Ready", the second half of the title referring to the Impressions song that it borrows from.

Comparing Bad Company’s opening lines that are also repeated throughout the song Bad Company to Joni Mitchell’s opening and repeated lines in her original piano version of Woodstock I have always felt as though they were copied and then repurposed.

Thank you.

The song The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis interpolates On Broadway by the Drifters near the end

my favorite example is when vampire weekends “step” interpolates both a vocal line as well as the sax melody of “step to my girl” by souls of mischief in the chorus, which itself is a sample of a grover washington jr song “aubrey”

I'm thinking on M2M "Our song" that quote the entire chorus from "Too much heaven" by Bee Gees. It's not sampling because they sing the song and the instrumental are re-recorded, it's much more than a simple interpolation of a couple of bars and certainly it's not a cover version, the develop an entire new song based on that chorus.

I'd love to see you go down the rabbit hole with all the times the incredible bongo band Apache and the Lion Sleep tonight were used or interpolated.

What I got, sublime.

Great video

Amen brother has 2 interpolation (and one I think is right next to the break)

The guitar solo from Cream’s Sunshine of your love is an interpolation of the classic song Blue Moon.