Some people, on both sides of the musical fence, would like to see pop and classical music kept firmly apart. Others happily embrace both with equal affection. Hunt around, and you'll find many pop songs that have been influences by great classical works of the past. Here, our deputy editor Jeremy Pound presents 11 of the very best classical music-inspired pop songs.
Best songs inspired by classical music
Procol Harum: 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'
Capturing the hippy vibe of the Summer of Love to a tee and complete with its floaty Hammond organ intro, Procol Harum’s 1967 classic is surely the most famous pop song to have borrowed from classical music. Exactly which bit of JS Bach it is derived from, however, is not as clear as one might think.
Yes, there are elements of the Air on a G String in the ground bass there, but that famous intro is actually a canny adaptation of JSB’s ‘Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe’, BWV156.
It’s certainly a song with a complex history as, in 2009, Procol Harum keyboard player Matthew Fisher won a landmark ruling in the House of Lords to receive his share of the copyright for the song.
Pop critics, meanwhile, have spent many an hour in happy but pointless stroky-beard analysis of the real meaning of Keith Reid’s weird and wonderful lyrics…
The Beach Boys: 'Lady Lynda'
The Beach Boys also felt the Bach bug when, in 1979, vocalist and guitarist Al Jardine’s pleasingly heart-warming ‘Lady Lynda’ was included in the album L.A. Unlike Procol Harum, Jardine quotes his Bachian sources explicitly from the outset: the song begins with the composer’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring played by harpsichord and strings. Rather touchingly, the Lynda of the title refers to Jardine’s wife. Alas, the two divorced three years later. Perhaps she didn’t like Bach.
Eric Carmen: 'All By Myself'
When Eric Carmen’s power ballad ‘All By Myself’ reached No. 2 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1975, it proved a nice little windfall for the estate of the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov. As the US singer had based the song’s opening melody on a tune from the second movement of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, the latter’s heirs were entitled to a share of the royalties.
A classic weepie that wallows in self-reflective angst, Carmen’s song was given a second lease of life when Celine Dion’s all-guns-blazing version took it back into the charts in 1996. In the meantime, the Rachmaninov family had also been enjoying the boost to the back account provided by Carmen’s ‘Never Gonna Fall in Love Again’, this time based on the Second Symphony.
The Korgis: 'If I had you'
And there’s more Rachmaninov from British group The Korgis, who in 1979 took Variation 18 of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini to No. 13 in the UK charts when its famous cantabile tune formed the basis of their catchily optimistic ‘If I had you’.
Admittedly, the Korgis didn’t do that much with said tune, abandoning it after the first phrase and thumping out eight repeated chords instead. However, we’ll forgive them, as music doesn’t get much more uplifting than this.
Sting: 'Russians'
And while we’re on the subject of Russians, next up is Sting’s 1985 satirical song of that name, whose sombre melody and tramping bassline lean heavily on the surprisingly dark ‘Romance’ from Prokofiev’s orchestral suite Lieutenant Kijé.
Sting was not the only pop act to find himself inspired by Prokofiev’s colourful suite, which was drawn from music he wrote for a 1933 film. Eleven years earlier Greg Lake – of prog-rockers Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame – had quoted the famous ‘Troika’ in his nearly chart-topping ‘I believe in Father Christmas’.
More of the best pop songs inspired by classical music
Emerson, Lake and Palmer: 'Fanfare for the Common Man'
In fact, Emerson, Lake and Palmer (see above) regularly raided the classical library, sometimes simply presenting the original pieces in a rock version, such as the Mussorgsky-based ‘The Great Gates of Kiev’.
In 1977’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’, they are a little more inventive. The 1942 Aaron Copland fanfare that gives the song its name is heard at the opening, before Greg Lake’s alembic bass sets us off on a magnificent Copland-inspired jam session – nearly ten minutes on the album – complete with keyboardist Keith Emerson in full, over-the-top flight and some timpani action from drummer Carl Palmer too. Splendid.
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Strawberry Switchblade: 'Since Yesterday'
Of all the various guises that Sibelius might have expected to hear his music presented in, having it set to a drum machine and synths and accompanying lyrics about a couple contemplating splitting up probably wasn’t one of them.
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However, this is exactly what happened when, in 1984, Glaswegian New Wave duo Strawberry Switchblade got hold of the famous horn motif from the third movement of the Finn’s Fifth Symphony and placed it at the heart of what would become their best known song. Nordic purists may have shuddered, but the song was a success, reaching No. 5 in the UK chart.
The Farm: 'Altogether Now'
Pop producer Pete Waterman described Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) as ‘almost the grandfather of pop’, referring to the way that the ground bass of Pachelbel’s Canon has, in one way or another, provided the starting point for a whole legion of songs. Waterman himself admitted that it had even been the spark for that very quintessence of Stock-Aitken-and-Waterman boppiness, Kylie Minogue’s ‘I Should Be So Lucky’.
The most famous instance of Pachelbel’s work being referenced lock, stock and barrel in pop came when Liverpudlians The Farm released their ‘Altogether Now’ in 1990.
With lyrics telling the story of the Christmas Day truce in World War I, the song instantly caught on and, as rave culture took hold of the country, Pachelbel’s tune was soon a favourite with club-goers right across the UK. Pachelbel rocks. (He also features in our list of the greatest German composers of all time).
Phil Collins: 'A Groovy Kind of Love'
Just as Celine Dion is often credited with Eric Carmen’s ‘All By Myself’ (see above), many similarly believe that ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’ is the handiwork of Phil Collins, thanks to the Genesis man’s UK and US No. 1 hit in 1988. In fact, the song had made its first appearance in the charts more than two decades earlier, courtesy of 1965 releases by US duo Diane and Annita and then, a few months later, the Mindbenders.
All three versions would doubtless have delighted Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), whose Sonatina Op. 36, No. 5 provides the basis of the melody, to which words were added by songwriters Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager. As one of the great musical entrepreneurs of his era, the Italian-English composer liked nothing more than a big money-spinner.
Little Mix: 'Little Me'
Composed in 1887, Gabriel Fauré’s elegant Pavane in F sharp minor has cropped up in unexpected places over the years, not least when an arrangement of it was chosen by the BBC as the theme tune for its coverage of the 1998 football World Cup. And then, in 2013, here it was again, this time providing the basis for ‘Little Me’, a Top 20 single by former The X Factor-winners Little Mix.
As with the Beach Boys’ ‘Lady Lynda’ (see earlier), the English girl group’s song sets out where its inspiration came from by opening with the Pavane as Fauré wrote it, before then using its harmonic structure as the basis for what follows.
The White Stripes: 'Seven Nation Army'
Who would have thought that Bruckner would become a football terrace favourite, via the unlikely medium of a US rock band? Bear with us here. About two minutes into the Austrian composer’s Fifth Symphony (from 4:35 in the clip below) we hear a melody in the strings that, with a little rhythmic tweak or two, would also appear to be the opening bass riff heard in Seven Nation Army, the 2003 hit by the White Stripes.
Said seven-note riff has since become hugely popular among football fans worldwide, either with a player’s name added or with the notes just sung by themselves. As for the song’s classical links, the popular thinking here is that White Stripes guitarist and singer Jack White enjoyed orchestral music as a youngster and, ergo, was obviously influenced by what he heard in Bruckner’s symphony. Hmmm. White himself has never confirmed this, and the similarity could be simply coincidental. One for the ‘possibles’ draw, perhaps…?
Jeremy Pound is deputy editor of BBC Music Magazine. His pop music claims to fame include having played in a string quartet with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and regularly parking his car outside the Cheltenham birthplace of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones.
