Modern music that incorporates traditional song / nursery rhymes

[steveeeeeeeee]

Not sure I explain it so well in the title, but have heard a couple of songs in the last week or so which are largely based on a nursery rhyme or sea shanty.

Pere Ubu - Caligan's Mirror: Each verse lifts the refrain from "What Shall We do with the Drunken Sailor", the chorus then changes it a bit.

Can - Mary, Mary, So Contrary: Is basically Michael Mooney singing the rhyme, getting more shouty as the song goes on and adding some bits of urban depravity.

Must be lots more examples, but these are the ones that turned up on shuffle in the last week.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Mary Had A Little Lamb by Paul McCartney

[Stumpy Pepys]

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush by Traffic

[Nurse Duckett]

Banana Splits by the Dickies

Nellie The Elephant by the Toy Dolls

[steveeeeeeeee]

Mary Had A Little Lamb by Paul McCartney

Just checked this, it is awful.

[Jah Womble]

^MHALL was released by McCartney as a sneer to the BBC, who'd recently banned their Give Ireland Back to the Irish.

Not sure whether any of these constitute 'modern' but:

Cradle of Love - Johnny Preston (references a number of trad songs, including Rock-a-Bye Baby and Jack Be Nimble)
Simon Says - 1910 Fruitgum Company (incorporates Simon Says, obvs)
Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross (incorporates A-Tisket, A-Tasket)
Big Seven - Judge Dread (various rude-ish revisions of nursery rhymes)
Mockingbird - Carly Simon & James Taylor (basically the song itself)
Oops Upside Your Head - The Gap Band (incorporates Jack & Jill)
Me Myself and I - De La Soul (incorporates Mirror, Mirror on the Wall)
Mary Had a Little Boy - Snap! (adopts Mary Had a Little Lamb)

[Amor de Cosmos]

The Clapping Song and The Name Game by Shirley Ellis.

[Patrick Thistle]

Tubthumping includes a reference to Danny Boy.

[WOM]

The opening flute melody to Down Under by Men At Work was a trad childrens' song called Kookaburra Sits in The Old Gum Tree.

[ad hoc]

In Secret Girl by Sonic Youth there is the line "I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility" which is a line from Joyce's Ulysses said to be a rhyme Stephen's mother used to sing to him

[Snake Plissken]

Rammsteins Spieluhr is about a child who pretends to be dead and buried with a music box. The lyrics reference the tune played by the music box as the nursery rhyme Hoppe Hoppe Reiter

[Jah Womble]

The opening flute melody to Down Under by Men At Work was a trad childrens' song called Kookaburra Sits in The Old Gum Tree.

As Mr Hay discovered to his great cost.

[slackster]

Genesis’ Musical Box references Old King Cole. Probably not a surprise as it was on the puntastic Nusery Crymes LP.

[treibeis]

The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths
(starts with Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty)

[treibeis]

Fire - Jimi Hendrix
(incorporates Old Mother Hubbard)

[Jah Womble]

HMHB have obviously adapted or incorporated one or two kiddies' tunes in their time.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

"Believe me if all those endearing young charms, which I gaze on so fondly today",,,,,,,,,Come on eileen!

[Wouter D]

(incorporates A-Tisket, A-Tasket)

Also part of Ham 'n' Eggs by A Tribe Called Quest.

[Etienne]

The Cuckoo ("the cuckoo is a pretty bird, she warbles as she flies") appears in several songs, including High Water by Dylan

[Disco Child Ballads]

Does this also cover pop songs that use traditional folk tunes as there's likely to be a whole load of them. One that springs to mind is 'Belfast Child' by Simple Minds which uses the melody to 'She Moved Through the Fair'.

[Benjm]

Moving In With by Happy Mondays includes a substantial lift from the story of Henny Penny (aka Chicken Little), including the rhyming animal names.

[sw2borshch]

I feel like there's loads of Happy Mondays tracks that do this.

But anyway, Ice Cube - A Gangsta's Fairytale, with bonus Andrew Dice Clay sample.

[sw2borshch]

Oh, and it's Chicken Licken aka Chicken Little.

[Fussbudget]

Cheryl Cole's number one smash* Promise This has some kind of dodgy extrapolation of Alouette, Gentille Alouette as the hook

* (bloody hell, she's had five solo number ones! Well done to anyone who can name more than two of her singles off the top of their head)

[treibeis]

Georgie Porgy - Toto