Common Meter

I learned from Achewood that since this poem is in ballad meter, it can be sung to the tune of Gilligan's Island. Since then, try as I might, I haven't ONCE been able to read it normally.

—xkcd, "The Carriage"

The Common Meter is a poetic rhythm which is, naturally, very common. (For the metrically inclined, it consists of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter - although, and especially where hymns are concerned, "iambic" is not an absolute requirement) In layperson's terms, it consists of alternating lines of eight and six syllables, or 8.6.8.6. Abbreviated CM. There is also Common Meter Double (CMD), which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

It's used in a number of well-known songs and poems, and as a result, you can swap the lyrics and tunes around, often to amusing effect. Some of the best One Song To The Tune Of Another rounds on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue have done this (others have deliberately chosen songs with completely different meters to make it more difficult).

Playing with common meter can have a variety of uses. Setting old lyrics to new music can revive a song and bring it back into popularity and use. On the other hand, this can also be done to mock an old song by setting it to a tune that's irreverent of the song's origins. Or it can be used as an affectionate parody of the old song.

Not to be confused with Common Time. A tune can scan to Common Meter, be in Common Time, neither, or both.

Examples of Common Meter include:

• "Amazing Freaking Grace"
• "Gilligan's Island"
  • Parts of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (the verses, but not the chorus) and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" can be sung to "Gilligan's Island" et alia.
• "The House of the Rising Sun"
  • "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" has been sung to the tune of "The House of the Rising Sun".
    • You'll find that on one of Bob Rivers' Christmas albums.
  • Gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama recorded a version of "Amazing Grace" set to this tune. It works but some may find the Mood Dissonance confusing.
    • "Beneath the Cross of Jesus" is another hymn that has been sung to this tune, and it is similarly jarring when this is done.
• Robert A. Heinlein's The Green Hills of Earth
• "Semper Paratus", the marching song of the United States Coast Guard.
  • It has been demonstrated — probably from a safe distance — to Marines that their hymn, "From the Halls of Montezuma", can be sung to the "Gilligan's Island" theme.
• "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night"
  • There was an occasion on a particular Christmas Eve when all present started singing "Angels We Have Heard On High" to the tune of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Nobody even noticed until the second or third verse.
    • Technically, though, neither of them is in CM.
  • It Came Upon a Midnight Clear also works. Writers of Christmas song lyrics seem to love this.
• "There Is a Green Hill Far Away"
• "Yankee Doodle"
  • "Yankee Doodle" uses trochees, though, not iambs. (In layman's terms, the accented syllable is first instead of second.)
• Lots of Emily Dickinson poems (e.g. "Because I Could Not Stop For Death")
  • It has been pointed out that any Emily Dickinson poem can be sung to the tune "The Yellow Rose of Texas."
    • It gets a mention in a fifth-season Babylon 5 episode.
    • Probably a Shout-Out to Sharyn McCrum's (Bimbos of the Death Sun), Zombies of the Gene Pool. Where a Hillybilly Folk singer (with a PHD) mentions that he did exactly this to fool a visiting scholar.
  • Most of her songs can also be sung to the theme song of Gilligan's Island.
• Most of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
• Also Richard Lovelace's To Althea, from Prison. ("Stone walls do not a prison make / Nor iron bars a cage")
• Hoedown!
• The Australian national anthem.
  • As is Working Class Man. Adam Hills once suggested that, to keep the anthem relevant, we keep the lyrics and sing them to the tune of Working Class Man. He then demonstrated. Awesomely.
• Infamous Filk Song "Banned from Argo"; it's been noted how many songs scan to it.
• "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing".
• "The Little Snicket Lad" can be sung to the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme.
  • This is especially funny given that the text explicitly notes that the song was mistakenly written to the tune of a well-known song about naval disaster. (aka "Row Row Row Your Boat")
• "The Yellow Rose of Texas"
  • Also "The Yellow Rose", a country song by Johnny Lee and Lane Brody that swiped the melody from "The Yellow Rose of Texas".
• The writer of the webcomic Everyday Heroes likes to start new chapters with a bit of allegedly humorous verse, done in Common Meter. Examples can be found here, here, here, and here.
• "The Ballad of the Beverly Hillbillies"
  • Which Weird Al set to the tune of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits
• "Casey At the Bat" can be sung to "Ghost Riders in the Sky".
• "Johnson's Motor Car"
• Parts of "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" fit this meter ("You've painted up your lips and rolled in curls your tinted hair/Ruby, are you contemplating going out somewhere?")
• Several Child Ballads, including:
  • "Tam Lin"
  • "The Maid Freed from the Gallows" as performed by Tim Erikson
  • "Willie O Winsbury"
• "Knoxville Girl," an American Murder Ballad
• The verses of "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" by The Arrogant Worms
• The verses of "Sing For Me" by The Fiery Furnaces
• "Old Polina"
• "The Rising of the Moon"
• "The Scotsman"
• "Tight Fittin' Jeans" by Conway Twitty
• The Legend of Zelda poem on the Cosmic Keystone page of this very wiki.
• "Joy to the World" and many of Isaac Watts other psalm "translations".
• The Phantom of the Opera (the main theme) is this.
• As is the season one Pokemon theme. (Combines particularly well with the last one.)
• California Dreamin' by The Mamas and the Papas is slightly off, but still a variety of this.
• Older Than Steam: The Scottish Psalter of 1650 sets the biblical Psalms to Common Metre.^[1] It's here. While the Scottish Psalter didn't invent Common Metre, it is the reason that it's consider "Common"—149 of the 150 psalms (including Psalm 119, in 22 separate parts) are written in Common Metre.^[2] Poor scansion and Painful Rhyme are the natural result in many cases. The Psalter also had a wide variety of Common Metre tunes which could be used with any of the psalms; standard publishing practice for this and other metrical psalters, even today, is to divide the book in half horizontally, essentially binding two separate books together, the upper with music and the lower with the words.
• Another oldie is the Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus. It was most likely written in 1572, and based on a melody older than that. It also plays the trope completely straight by not having a chorus in between the verses, and thus being all common meter.
• The verses of "The Mummers Dance" by Loreena McKennitt.

1. ↑ This was the point of it; since hymns were forbidden in the Calvinist tradition held by the Prebyterian Church (the Church of Scotland, at the time), only scriptural references and paraphrases could be sung. The natural target was therefore the Psalms, already intended as congregational songs; however, the songs were written originally in anceint Hebrew and were translated (roughly) into non-metrical English in the King James Bible of 1610 (as well as a few other editions of the 16th century) which worked fine for the English, who could sing their psalms in Anglican Chant or Plainchant - but the practice of chanting was consider too much of a Catholic holdover by the Scots.
2. ↑ Many psalms have two versions, one in Common Metre and one in another; Psalm 136 has two versions, and neither is in Common Metre -- it is the only exception in the entire 1650 Scottish Psalter.