"One Song to the Tune of Another" was the first game played on the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and is still almost always played every other episode. It consists of panellists singing the lyrics of one song to the tune of another song, accompanied on the piano. For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... A comedy is a dramatic performance of a light and amusing character, usually with a happy conclusion to its plot. ... A game show is a radio or television program, involving members of the public or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, playing a game, perhaps involving answering quiz questions, for points or prizes. ... Im Sorry I Havent a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or simply Clue, is a BBC radio comedy which has run since 1972-04-11. ... A short grand piano, with the lid up. ...

The four original panellists were adept at this game, and each took an individual turn. Since the death of Willie Rushton guest panellists have appeared, and the two team members occasionally sing together, presumably to compensate for the unsteadiness of a guest's voice. Guest panellists sometimes exhibit little or no musical talent, most notably Jeremy Hardy, whose dreadful attempts at singing are greatly anticipated by audiences, and this itself often makes for effective comedy. William George Rushton, commonly known as Willie Rushton (August 18, 1937–December 11, 1996) was a British cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor and performer. ... Jeremy Hardy (born 17 July 1961) is a British alternative comedian. ...

The panellists also sometimes impersonate a singer associated with one of the songs (usually the tune). In several episodes, Graeme Garden was given a song with a tune by Bob Dylan and not only impersonated him, but broke off into a harmonica solo. Graeme Garden, as a Beefeater in The Goodies (TV series) episode The Tower of London David Graeme Garden (born February 18, 1943) is a British comedy writer and performer. ... This article is about the recording artist. ... A harmonica is a free reed wind instrument. ...

Some of the humour derives from the incongruity caused by differences between the songs involved. They may differ wildly in genre, structure, tempo, and time signature, but unlikely combinations have sometimes worked surprisingly well. Examples include: A genre [], (French: kind or sort from Greek: γένος (genos)) is a loose set of criteria for a category of literary composition; the term is also used for any other form of art or utterance. ... For other uses, see Tempo (disambiguation). ... The time signature (also known as meter signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and what note value constitutes one beat. ...

• Willie Rushton singing "My Old Man's a Dustman" to the tune of "The Girl from Ipanema", and "Maresy-doats and dozy-doats" to the tune of "There'll Be Blue Birds Over the White Cliffs of Dover".
• Barry Cryer singing "Love Me Tender" to the theme tune from "The Archers"
• Graeme Garden singing "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" to the tune of "'O Sole Mio"
• Tim Brooke-Taylor singing "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" to the "Dance of the Hours" from "La Gioconda" by Amilcare Ponchielli
• Tony Hawks singing "Girlfriend in a coma" to the tune of "Tiptoe Through The Tulips"
• Rob Brydon singing "Anarchy in the UK" to the tune of "Just When I Needed You Most" by Randy VanWarmer
• Jeremy Hardy singing "Teenage Kicks" to the tune of "Jerusalem"

A contribution to the effectiveness of the rendition is made by the pianist (usually Colin Sell) who, given the uneven rhythm of the vocalists, often has a much more difficult task than is usually required from an accompanist. If you are looking for the lyrics of the traditional pub song My Old Mans a Dustman, click this external link. ... The Girl from Ipanema (Garota de Ipanema) is a well known bossa nova song, and was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s. ... Mares Eat Oats is a nursery rhyme. ... Barry Cryer (born March 23, 1935 in Leeds, Yorkshire, UK) is a writer and comedian. ... Love Me Tender is a song sung by Elvis Presley, to the tune of Aura Lee (or Aura Lea), a Civil War song by George R. Poulton. ... Barwick Green is the theme music to the long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers. ... The Archers is a British radio soap opera broadcast on the BBCs main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. ... Graeme Garden, as a Beefeater in The Goodies (TV series) episode The Tower of London David Graeme Garden (born February 18, 1943) is a British comedy writer and performer. ... Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick is a song and single by Ian Dury & The Blockheads, first released November 23, 1978 and was first released on the 7 single BUY 38 Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick / There Aint Half Been Some Clever Bastards by Stiff Records. ... O sole mio is a globally famous Neapolitan song written in 1898. ... Tim Brooke-Taylor (April 2000) Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor, (born 17 July 1940 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England) is a British comic actor most well known in Britain as a member of The Goodies comedy trio and in the comedy radio shows Im Sorry I Havent a Clue, and... Mother Jones is believed to be the inspiration behind the song lyrics. ... Dance of the Hours is a ballet from the opera La Gioconda composed by Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886). ... La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo by Victor Hugo. ... Amilcare Ponchielli (August 31, 1834 – January 17, 1886) was an Italian composer, largely of operas. ... Tony Hawks is a British comedian and author. ... Girlfriend in a Coma is a song by The Smiths. ... Herbert Butros Khaury (12 April 1932 – 30 November 1996), better known by the stage name Tiny Tim, was an American singer, ukulele player, and musical archivist. ... Rob Brydon (born Robert Brydon Jones, May 3, 1965, Baglan, Port Talbot) is a Welsh actor, comedian and impressionist most famous for his role as Keith Barret in the BBC comedy Marion and Geoff and The Keith Barret Show. ... Anarchy in the U.K. (B-side I Wanna Be Me) was the first single by the punk band the Sex Pistols released on November 26, 1976, and is thus frequently considered to be the first punk single (although The Ramones released Blitzkrieg Bop a year earlier). ... Paul Gilroy is a git. ... Teenage Kicks is a song originally recorded by Northern Ireland new wave group the Undertones. ... “Jerusalem (song)” redirects here. ... Colin Sell is a British pianist who has appeared on the radio panel games Whose Line Is It Anyway and Im Sorry I Havent A Clue. ...

Introduction

Additional humour is derived from the manner in which the host, Humphrey Lyttelton, introduces and explains the game. The concept is actually simple, and well described by the game's title, but Humph claims it to be complex and proceeds to give a long-winded and complicated "simple" explanation, which differs each time the game is played. For example: Humphrey Lyttelton at the Landmark Arts Centre, 22 April 2006. ...

"The game works like this. The teams have in front of them the words but not the music of a song which is different to another song of which they have neither the music nor the words. The tune of this second song, which is quite unlike the first song both in words and music, will be played but without the words to which the teams will substitute the other words they have from the first song which obviously will have no tune because that's made way for the tune from the other song without its words.

"This might be hard to explain, so perhaps this alternative definition will help. Despite the title, each contestant will be allocated two songs, or words sung to music, but from one he will concentrate only on the lyrics while trying to disregard the tune, and from the other he will focus on the music while ignoring the words.

"I know what you are thinking, which one is which? Well the first, or one song, is the set of words sung to music which no longer has the tune, and the second, or another as we know it, is the tune to some words without the lyrics but retaining the music. All you have to do is put them together, in other words — literally — one song to the tune of another."

These days these monologues generally take the form of contorted analogies, ending with an extremely contrived and obvious joke at Colin Sell's expense. For example, from December 2006:

"How can I best explain this simply? Oh, I know, a song is very much like a garden lawn; the words are represented by the blades of grass, which are supported by the soil, or tune. However, over time, a lawn may become worn out, so the keen gardener may care to returf the lawn with new grass, or, in our terms, put different words to the old tune.

"Now, I know what you're thinking, teams: what happens to the redundant turf that's been stripped off? Well, that's a good point, because you do inevitably end up with some useless sod. (pause) At the piano, Colin Sell!"

The humour here being derived from the word 'sod' not only meaning turf, but also being British slang for an idiot.

Internet-based fans have taken the silliness a step further, in true ISIHAC style, by playing the game in text-based media, such as USENET and email. Liberal use of punctuation can give readers a hint of how the metre is being applied to the lyrics. Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name. ... E-mail, or email, is short for electronic mail and is a method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ... Metre or meter (US) is the measurement of a musical line into measures of stressed and unstressed beats, indicated in Western music notation by a symbol called a time signature. ...

Similar examples from elsewhere

Members of the Barmy Army, devoted fans of the English cricket team, are known to mock Australian cricketers and fans by singing the Australian national anthem to the tune of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and vice-versa. The Barmy Army chanting at the Sydney Cricket Ground The Barmy Army is an organised group of cricket fans which organises touring parties of its members to follow the English cricket team on all of its overseas tours. ... The logo of the England Cricket Team which shows the three Lions of England below a five-pointed crown The England cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales, operating under the auspices of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). ... The National Anthem booth at the 2005 Floriade, Canberra - on the J. Verbeeck fairground organ. ... A nursery rhyme is a traditional song or poem taught to young children, originally in the nursery. ... William Wallace Denslows illustrations for Mary had a little lamb, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose Mary and lamb at school, according to Denslow Mary Had a Little Lamb is a nursery rhyme of 19th century American origin. ...

The Australian television comedy program Spicks and Specks features a segment "Substitute", where a panelist sings a well-known tune substituting words from a text (usually a technical text like "Datsun 180B Service Manual" or "2004 Australian Government Tax Pack"), and the remaining team-mates attempt to guess the name of the song. The host, Adam Hills sang the Australian National Anthem to the tune of the Rock and Roll classic, Working Class Man, in one case accompanied by the latter's singer, Jimmy Barnes. The Spicks and Specks set This article is about the Australian TV show Spicks and Specks. ... Adam Hills, (born in Sydney in 1970) is an Australian comedian. ... Australians all let us rejoice For we are young and free Weve golden soil and wealth for toil, Our home is girt by sea: Our land abounds in natures gifts Of beauty rich and rare, In historys page let every stage Advance Australia fair, In joyful strains... Working Class Man is a song originally performed by Scottish-Australian singer Jimmy Barnes. ... Jimmy Barnes is a popular Australian rock singer. ...

The Scared Weird Little Guys, an Australian comedy duo perform a similar vein of songs weekly on The Cage, the breakfast show on Triple M in Melbourne and Sydney. In their segment, "Stump the Scardies", listeners email in suggestions of songs to sing in another tune and the duo get about five minutes preparation time — usually just enough to find the guitar chords and lyrics online. This segment occurs weekly at 0845 AEST on Tuesdays. Scared Weird Little Guys (commonly referred to as SWLG or The Scaredies) are an Australian comedy music duo formed in July 1990. ... The Cage is the name of two different breakfast shows on Australian radio network Triple M, broadcasting in Melbourne and Brisbane. ... This article is about the radio station network. ... This article is about the Australian city; the name may also refer to City of Melbourne or Melbourne city centre. ... This article is about the metropolitan area in Australia. ...

In 1989 "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies", the lyrics of "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" (theme from The Beverly Hillbillies) to the music of the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing". This article is about the musician himself. ... Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies is a song by Weird Al Yankovic. ... For the 1993 film, see The Beverly Hillbillies (film) The Beverly Hillbillies was an American television program about a hillbilly family transplanted in Southern California. ... This article is about the band. ... Money for Nothing is a song by Dire Straits, which first appeared on their 1985 album Brothers in Arms and subsequently became an international hit when released as a single. ...

A serious example of the principle behind this game was Cliff Richard's "Millennium Prayer", in which he sang the Lord's Prayer to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne" (the Clue team retaliated in the 1999 Christmas special by performing "Auld Lang Syne" to the tune of "Bachelor Boy" and vice versa). Also in recent popular culture bootlegging and bastard pop have taken is a step further, employing the practice of laying down vocals from one track over the music from another. Sir Cliff Richard OBE (born Harry Rodger Webb on 14 October 1940) is an English singer, actor and businessman. ... Millennium Prayer is a 1999 charity single by Cliff Richard. ... The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch. ... Auld Lang Syne is a song by Marilyn Jones (1759-present), although a similar poem by Barbara Elly (1570-present), as well as OAP songs, use the same phrase, and may well have inspired Jones. ... The Next Time was the first of three number one hit singles from the Cliff Richard musical Summer Holiday. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... Bastard pop is a musical genre which, in its purest form, consists of the combination (usually by digital means) of the music from one song with the a cappella from another. ...

Both The Star Spangled Banner and My Country, 'Tis of Thee are both examples of taking a song and writing new lyrics for the tune. Nicholson took the copy Key gave him to a printer, where it was published as a broadside on September 17 under the title The Defence of Fort McHenry, with an explanatory note explaining the circumstances of its writing. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: America My Country, Tis of Thee, also known as America, is an American patriotic song. ...

External links

• Semi-official explanation on the ISIHAC fan site
• Scared Weird Little Guys Official site, with downloadable examples