Sonic memory
Three songs that sound like three other songs
Sometimes you hear a song whose sound jolts you into the memory of another song. I’ve been meaning to write about this a while, but I recently collected my third example, so, well, here you go.
“Mind Games” by John Lennon and “Lover” by Taylor Swift
Despite being a huge fan of The Beatles, I didn’t spend much time listening to the Fab Four’s solo careers until more recently. This sonic memory doesn’t come down to any specific sequence of notes but rather the overall texture of the music. Well, it’s mostly the respective choruses of the two songs: slow, drawn out, yearning.
“Picture Book” by The Kinks and “Walkie Talkie Man” by Steriogram
Okay, this one is widely remarked upon on the internet and even the press. Maybe I’m not the only kid who played Elite Beat Agents and later became a fan of The Kinks. The guitar riff in “Walkie Talkie Man” is basically the “Picture Book” riff sped up. Green Day borrowed it too for “Warning”.
“Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” by The Royal Guardsmen and “Get Off of My Cloud” by The Rolling Stones
The little musical interlude in “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” around 1:45 reminds me of the guitar riff from “Get Off of My Cloud”. The timing is superficially plausible: “Cloud” was a mega-hit in 1965; a year later, the Guardsmen released their novelty song. But it turns out there is a real connection here: “Snoopy” lifted this section from “Hang On Sloopy”, which also became a hit in 1965 when it was covered by The McCoys. Supposedly the original recording had the Guardsmen actually singing “hang on Snoopy” over this section of the song, but the lyrics were removed from the final release.
In any case, both the riffs from “Cloud” and “Sloopy” sound an awful lot like The Kingsmen’s 1963 take on Louie Louie. I guess the sound was in the air at the time.