Songs from the Dead: Short Histories of Legendary Songs

Boléro: The World’s Slowest Explosion

Boléro begins with almost nothing: a snare drum, a few plucked strings, and a flute playing a tune that will come back again and again. Ravel wrote it in 1928 after a co

Aura Lea: The Civil War Song Behind Elvis's First Movie Hit

Love Me Tender sounded like a new Elvis Presley ballad in 1956. The melody was already ninety-five years old. It began as Aura Lea, published in Cincinnati in 1861 with

Twinkle, Twinkle: Mozart, the Mad Hatter, and Edison's Talking Doll

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of those songs you seem to know before anyone teaches it to you. But Mozart did not write it. The melody first appears in eighteent

In the Hall of the Mountain King: Trolls, Metal, and The Social Network

In the Hall of the Mountain King begins with a tiny tune in the low strings and ends with what sounds like the orchestra being overrun. Grieg wrote it for Peer Gynt, whe

Bonus Episode: The Imperfect Enjoyment

The Imperfect Enjoyment sounds like a polite complaint about dinner. It is actually a seventeenth-century poem about premature ejaculation, impotence, wounded pride, and

Für Elise: The Woman, the Mystery, and the Melody

One of the most familiar piano pieces in the world may have the wrong woman's name on it. Beethoven wrote the piece we call Für Elise around 1810, but he never published

Bonus Episode: Thank You, Courtney Love!

A thank-you to Courtney Love for sharing our In the Pines episode on Instagram.

Ode to Joy: From Beethoven to Sister Act and Mr. Brightside

You know Ode to Joy. You may know it from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a church hymn, A Clockwork Orange, the European anthem, Sister Act 2, or possibly a few suspicious s

Cotton-Eyed Joe: The Strange Life Before Rednex

Most people know Cotton Eye Joe as the 1994 Rednex hit: fiddle, banjo, enormous dance beat, and a chorus capable of making an entire wedding party regret its knees the ne

Carmen’s Habanera: The Rebellious Bird That Flew from Opera into Pop

Carmen walks into a public square and explains her theory of love: it is a wild bird. You cannot command it, bargain with it, or make it stay. That argument became one o

Happy Birthday to You: The Song Everybody Knows

You know Happy Birthday to You before anyone sings a word. A cake appears. Someone dims the lights. Two notes begin, and the whole room knows what comes next. The melody

Boatswain: Byron's Epitaph for His Dog (Bonus episode)

This time, Songs from the Dead is doing something unusual. Instead of an old song, this bonus episode begins with a poem. In 1808, twenty-year-old George Gordon Byron's

Whiskey in the Jar: Betrayal Ballad, Then and Now

"Whiskey in the Jar" is a betrayal ballad that keeps changing clothes. At its core, the story is simple: a robber meets Captain Farrell, steals his money, takes it home

Where to Start with Songs from the Dead

Every Monday, we take one legendary song, uncover its strange history, and play a brand-new reinterpretation. In about ten minutes, we try to bring old songs back to lif

Prodigal Son: No Way to Get Along

Robert Wilkins put two men on the same road. In 1929, he recorded "That’s No Way to Get Along", a blues song about a wounded man trying to get away. Women have treated h

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor: Bach to Muse, Eminem, and the Dance Floor

You know Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor even if you have never seen the title. Three sharp notes, a pause, then the famous fall down the organ keyboard. In cartoons

Bella Ciao: The Two Lives of an Italian Farewell

Bella Ciao means “Goodbye, beautiful.” Most people know it as an anti-fascist anthem: sung at demonstrations, football terraces, protests, remixes, and in Money Heist. Bu

Kungla Folk: The Song of a Country That Was Still Becoming Itself

Kungla Folk sounds ancient: a golden realm, Vanemuine with his kannel, birds and trees catching the tune, and the Estonian people learning to sing. But this national son

Mars, the Bringer of War: How Violence Became a Machine

Gustav Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War does not make war magnificent. It makes war mechanical. Written in 1914, just before the First World War supplied the world with

God’s Gonna Cut You Down: The Long Life of a Short Warning

God’s Gonna Cut You Down is a short warning with a very long life. Many modern listeners know it first through Johnny Cash: slow, dark, wooden, and final. But the song e