Tunes for the songs in How Much for Just the Planet?

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I asked this a few years back on the old Pocket Star Trek forum.

Does anybody here know what tunes Ford had in mind for the songs in How Much for Just the Planet?

Of course, the one set to the Rawhide theme is pretty obvious, and the Gilbert and Sullivan quotes are from actual operettas, but anybody know about any of the others?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Some friends of mine once worked out most of them - and we confirmed lots of them with John M Ford* himself, when he came to a convention in Sydney, but those friends have had a falling out, so my plans of hosting a fun night where we rediscovered them all over a few drinks have been dashed.

A thread here, about a year ago, pinned down quite a few.

* John, err Mike (the "John" is silent), mentioned that Pocket Books wouldn't permit the listing of the titles in the book, circumventing potential copyright and red tape problems.

 

[Captain Robert April]

If it's only a year ago, it should still be in the archives...

 

[Christopher]

As I recall, we identified very few, and I sort of got the impression that many of them were probably not exactly to the tune of any specific song but just approximating them.

 

[Therin of Andor]

If it's only a year ago, it should still be in the archives...

I thought I'd sent a text of the thread to myself as an email, but I'm drawing blanks so far.

Ah: just found a reference to "Theme from Rawhide," "Falling in Love Again," and "Just a Gigolo" (Memory Beta).

 

[Captain Robert April]

Found three previous threads on the subject:

Songs from "How Much For Just The Planet"

"How Much For Just The Planet?"

How Much For Just The Planet?

The top one seems the most relevant.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Found three previous threads on the subject:

Songs from "How Much For Just The Planet"

"How Much For Just The Planet?"

How Much For Just The Planet?

The top one seems the most relevant.

Cool! For some reason, I can never get TrekBBS searches to work properly.

Okay, what I'm going to do is set up a blog entry with everything we know so far, and keep adding to it as new information comes through, because it's a FAQ - year after year.

I can definitely say that Mike Ford told us, here in Australia, that his intention was to list the tunes in the book, but Pocket's editors/lawyers said "No". We didn't think to ask him if all the songs definitely scanned exactly (and obviously some don't) but I know he was surprised that my musicals fanatic-friends at the time had guessed as many as they had. We shoulda written it all down then.

I'll start adding tonight. Page is at:
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/p/how-much-for-just-planet-search-for.html

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Seems to me that as we come up with answers, we can also put them into the Memory Beta article, hopefully eventually providing a table.

Could "I'm supposed to be a princess"/"I suppose you've heard the story" have anything to do with either a Disney movie, or the Rodgers & Hammerstein Cinderella?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'm guessing that the title (but apparently only the title) of "Monochrome" might be an allusion to Paul Simon's "Kodachrome."

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think that matchup has already been discounted. Apparently the verses don't match up.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

If by "that matchup" you mean "Monochrome"/"Kodachrome," yes, that's why I say that while the title is probably an allusion, but the tune is certainly from something else.

I'm convinced that the key to "I'm supposed to be a princess"/"I suppose you've heard the story" is that each verse (discounting what appears to be an introductory recitative) ends in the form "For the <girl/boy> inside the <three syllables> clothes/For me."

If we can just find a similar pattern (ten syllables followed by two) elsewhere, we probably have it.

(Incidentally, regarding the fitting of texts to tunes, has anybody else noticed this little tidbit, first broadcast on the PIPORG-L list some time ago: "Amazing Grace" scans perfectly to the tune of "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island"?)

 

[Christopher]

(Incidentally, regarding the fitting of texts to tunes, has anybody else noticed this little tidbit, first broadcast on the PIPORG-L list some time ago: "Amazing Grace" scans perfectly to the tune of "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island"?)

Yeah, The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle has a fairly basic, straightforward sea-shanty structure, so there are bound to be a lot of things that match its form (iambic tetrameter). It also works with most of Emily Dickinson's poems.

I've found that if you write limericks and want to make sure you've got the metrical structure right (something very important to limericks and all too often overlooked by the casual limericist), the ideal test is whether it can be sung to the tune of the Popeye theme. It doesn't have to have the exact same number of syllables per line as the Popeye theme, but it needs to have the same pattern of stressed syllables, the same rhythm.

 

[Captain Robert April]

There was a young man from Nantucket...

By golly, it DOES fit the Popeye theme...

 

[DEWLine]

At the risk of inducing thread drift: I've just read through the blog entry in question...right to the end.

I've missed that Ilen joke for decades...

*breaks down laughing*

 

[Therin of Andor]

I've missed that Ilen joke for decades...

*breaks down laughing*

Glad to help. Neil Gaiman himself mentions it here:

"And there are songs -- proper lyrics, capable of being sung. One caveat though -- while most of Ford's anagrams and references are capable of being resolved by anyone with a Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, a good Dictionary and a little luck, I must confess myself still utterly baffled by the identity of Ilen the Magian, who sang 'Monochrome' in How Much For Just The Planet. Lord, but it's a fine song nonetheless."

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/09/ten-years-ago.html

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

(Incidentally, regarding the fitting of texts to tunes, has anybody else noticed this little tidbit, first broadcast on the PIPORG-L list some time ago: "Amazing Grace" scans perfectly to the tune of "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island"?)

Yeah, The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle has a fairly basic, straightforward sea-shanty structure, so there are bound to be a lot of things that match its form (iambic tetrameter). It also works with most of Emily Dickinson's poems.

I've found that Poe's The Raven can also be sung to the tune of Deck the Halls:

"Once upon a midnight dreary, fa la la la la, la la la la..."

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I can definitely say that Mike Ford told us, here in Australia, that his intention was to list the tunes in the book, but Pocket's editors/lawyers said "No".

If he were posting the musical notation, I can see a copyright issue.

If he wanted only to list the songs, I don't see the copyright issue at all. It's not common, but some authors do put playlists in their books. If it were written today, the playlist would probably be on a website somewhere; Stephenie Meyer has the playlists for the Twilight novels up on her website. (I know this because she's an Elbow fan, and it bothers me that she's a fan of a band I love.)

 

[JD]

Kim Harrison did the same thing for one of her Hollows books on Amazon.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And I seem to recall reading that there are several precedents asserting that parodies of songs, with or without the permission of the original composers and lyricists, constitute Constitutionally-protected free speech, and do not infringe copyrights.

Let's consider the obvious ones:

"Rollin', rollin, rollin" = "Rawhide" (TV open)
"Falling apart again" = "Falling in love again" (standard)
"I'm an automaton" = "Just a gigolo" (standard)
"I ain't got no body" = "I ain't got nobody" (standard; often sung in medly with "gigolo")

This should have told us right away that there's no reason to confine ourselves to show tunes.

I could be wrong, but I don't think anything from "The Pirates of Penzance" would apply. I don't know "Pinafore" or "Mikado" well enough, and don't know any other G&S operettas at all. Nor can I think of anything from "Pippin" that would fit any of the texts, either.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And I seem to recall reading that there are several precedents asserting that parodies of songs, with or without the permission of the original composers and lyricists, constitute Constitutionally-protected free speech, and do not infringe copyrights.

Tell that to Little Roger and the Goosebumps, who recorded "Stairway to Gilligan's Island" but were sued by Led Zeppelin's lawyers.

Also, when Weird Al does a parody, doesn't he have to get permission from the original artist first?