Name this Tune

May 15, 2007 9:39 AM

What is the title of this common piece of music?

Here's a sample of the musical notes in question - it is the introduction to Billy Preston's "Nothing from Nothing." The very beginning of the tune utilizes a common introduction used on other (often old-timey) songs. I just wondered if these notes are from a longer piece, a la "Shave and a Haircut"?

posted by Oriole Adams to media & arts (14 comments total)

It's some kind of military march. Maybe the Liberty Bell by Sousa?
posted by humblepigeon at 9:48 AM on May 15, 2007

Muskrat Ramble, perhaps?
posted by sourwookie at 9:49 AM on May 15, 2007

I hear the beginning to Country Joe McDonald's 'Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die Rag'- from the album, not today's Woodstock post.

The interesting thing to me is that there are several versions of Muskrat Ramble on YouTube and none of them have that intro, but it is clearly the music behind the rest of 'Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die'
posted by MtDewd at 11:07 AM on May 15, 2007

Also heard in the introduction to the Muppet Show theme.

Based on the Wikipedia entry for "Shave and a Haircut", I get the sense that it wasn't so much an excerpt of a particular song as it was an emerging idiom that was crystallized in several popular songs of the day. I imagine this one is something similar (and probably in that same late-19th-Century timeframe).
posted by jjg at 11:33 AM on May 15, 2007

Definitely feels like something Sousa.
posted by Quarter Pincher at 12:15 PM on May 15, 2007

Definitely feels like something Sousa.

I've become a little obsessed with answering this question, and have just cycled through a zillion Sousa midi files trying to find this particular intro. I can't. However, I got bored around half way through, so it wasn't a comprehensive search.

I thought it might be an unusual arrangement of Liberty Bell, and I still think this; I've not yet found a full version of the Monty Python theme, which is where I think the arrangement might be from. All I can seem to find is versions recorded from TV, which start with the ting of a percussion triangle. I've a feeling that the full version, as recorded for the programme, will have this intro. Of course, that doesn't mean Sousa wrote it either, because the official intro to Liberty Bell is a descending glissando.

I suspect this is a tune that's simply "out there", in the same way a folk tune is, and is appended to various tunes to give them a marching band feel. Bearing in mind that many types of music evolved from marching bands, such as ragtime, it might be hard to trace an origin. Actually, it might be a scrap of ragtime now I think about it... Bearing in mind Billy Preston was a keyboard player, that would make sense.

Alternatively, it might be from a show-tune but you'd be looking at a show from the early twentieth century.
posted by humblepigeon at 1:32 PM on May 15, 2007

I've just listened to many ragtime tunes and can't find a match. One thing is certain: the intro from the Billy Preston song could have easily been a ragtime intro because it's the same style and same length. Consider the intro to Elite Syncopations, for example (midi file link).

So I'm sticking with my original theory that it's a soundalike tune designed to bring back memories of marching bands/ragtime/early jazz. If you fed all the ragtime tunes and marching band tunes into a computer, and asked it to come-up with the introductory bars of an average song, you'd probably get the Billy Preston intro.
posted by humblepigeon at 2:10 PM on May 15, 2007

Sounds like sideshow/calliope music to me. You know—step right up and see the Amazing What's-His-Name. Very familiar. I can't place exactly where I've heard it...but I know I have heard it elsewhere. Part of the intro to Bozo the Clown?

Have you tried this?
posted by bricoleur at 3:35 PM on May 15, 2007

I would also check early dixieland stuff, or jazz before it was oficially called "jazz." Something from Louie Armstrong's Hot Five/Hot Six period? Bix Beiderbecke?
posted by speicus at 3:57 PM on May 15, 2007

Thanks for the tunatic link, I've never seen that site before!

This song has been bugging me...I was able to track down the origin of some other old-time familiar tunes (like the aforementioned "Shave and a Haircut" and "Chopsticks," but no luck thus far on this one.
posted by Oriole Adams at 6:33 PM on May 15, 2007

It occurred to me that this sounded like a organ grinding tune, the kind of thing you hear at carnivals. (aka barrel organ/crank organ.)

I still can't track down the exact tune I'm thinking of, but this is a close match (MP3 link).

It's a song called agtime Jim by A Fred Phillips
posted by humblepigeon at 12:32 AM on May 16, 2007

Make that Ragtime Jim.
posted by humblepigeon at 12:32 AM on May 16, 2007

Lots and lots of circus/sideshow/calliope music here, including MP3 samples. I still can't find the damn tune but I'm sure it's in there somewhere. It's definitely a circus/sideshow tune that's often played on mechanical organs, and it's probably based on march music/ragtime/early jazz.
posted by humblepigeon at 12:54 AM on May 16, 2007

I'd always associated it with the Cockney knees up and assumed it came out of the (English) Music Hall tradition, like the "have a banana". Whether that's true or just chauvinism on my part I don't know. Bill Bailey, an English comedian, who does a set piece about how cockney music has influenced the great classical composers, certainly uses it.
posted by boudicca at 2:24 AM on May 16, 2007