Lemmings music: identifying the songs they are based on

[Save Me]

In the original Lemmings there are various backing music tracks. They are all based on various well known pieces of music. For example:

Can-Can
London Bridge is Falling Down
You Canna Shove Your Granny Off a Bus
I'm a Fruit and Nut Case

Can someone clearly identify all pieces of music in the original Lemmings and what 'real life' pieces of music they correspond to? Some of the best pieces of music in Lemmings I haven't been able to identify. Anyone?

[Simon]

The DOS version plays the tracks in the following order:

1. Lemming1, variation on Pachelbel's Canon, latter part of Lemmings 2 classic, remixed in Lemmings 3
2. Lemming2, original composition, first part of Lemmings 2 Classic, remixed in Lemmings 3
3. Lemming3, original composition
4. Coming round the mountain
5. twang, a mix of Ten green bottles, Chopin's funeral march and Wagner's Here Comes the Bride
6. Can-can
7. Tim1, original composition
8. Tim2, Good Night Ladies original composition
9. Tim3, original composition
10. Tim4, original composition, remixed in Lemmings 3
11. How much is the doggie in the window
12. Tim5, original composition
13. Tim6, original compotision (I think) Dance of the Reed Flutes
14. Tim7, Alla Turca
15. Tim8, Dance of the Little Swans
16. Tim9, London Bridge is Falling Down
17. Tim10, Forest Green = Oh little town of Bethlehem, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Special graphics levels have remixes from their corresponding DMA games. Oh no more Lemmings has 6 mostly original compositions. Other versions of Lemmings 1 usually play the above listed tracks in a different order.

what 'real life' pieces of music they correspond to?

Lemmings is the real life.

-- Simon

[finlay]

You Canna Shove Your Granny Off a Bus

As far as I can remember, this is just "she'll be coming round the mountain" with different lyrics, and possibly written/performed by the Singing Kettle...

[Save Me]

Are you Scottish as well finlay?

I suppose Lemmings is a Scottish creation, right?

[ccexplore]

13. Tim6, original compotision (I think)

No, it was a remix of one of the dances from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, "Dance of the Reed Flutes" according to Wikipedia.

[finlay]

Are you Scottish as well finlay?

I suppose Lemmings is a Scottish creation, right?

Yes and yes... I'm from Edinburgh, and DMA/Rockstar was/is based here too. Coincidentally, too; I only found out a few years ago.

But they were going for "She'll be coming round the mountain" – it's referred to as MOUNTAIN in the data files, IIRC. "Ye cannae shove yer granny off a bus" is a derivation of this song which was sung (to my knowledge) by the Singing Kettle – whether they just wrote it down or whether they invented it I'm not sure. According to Wikipedia, the song is American and derived in turn from black religious music in the 19th century. The granny variation is also mentioned on the Wikipedia article.

anyway welcome aboard. 

[namida]

For those interested in the Master System version's unique musics (also the ones I used in Lemmings Plus DOS Project),

13 is original as far as I'm aware
14 is Miniature Overture
15 is Scotland the Brave
17 is Don't Dilly-Dally On The Way

[Nortaneous]

5. Ten green bottles

Wikipedia says:

"Twang" - A song that uses melodies from traditional song "Ten Green Bottles", Chopin's funeral march and Wagner's "Here Comes the Bride".

Also, what's "mostly" original mean? This one sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it, and I've never heard the ONML music before unless it was used in the Covox demo or any of the Christmas games. (I didn't even know that they existed until now. I think my version had the original Lemmings music for everything; either that or the music didn't work, which wouldn't surprise me at all considering the utter clusterf*** that was SoundBlaster.)

[ccexplore]

Also, what's "mostly" original mean? This one sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it, and I've never heard the ONML music before unless it was used in the Covox demo or any of the Christmas games. (I didn't even know that they existed until now. I think my version had the original Lemmings music for everything; either that or the music didn't work, which wouldn't surprise me at all considering the utter clusterf*** that was SoundBlaster.)

For Xmas 94 they did simply reuse half of the ONML music (first 3 in the PC version; the 3rd is the one you linked to).  Whereas for the other Xmas games, they actually incorporated some traditional Xmas carol tunes, namely Jingle Bells and Good King Wenceslas, and then reuse Tim 10 (see Simon's list) for the 3rd music.

The only example I can think of on the PC where you may have original Lemmings music playing while playing ONML levels, is the (or maybe "one of the") Windows version that comes with both sets of levels in the same game.  But then again, I don't pretend to know all the different demo and special versions that exist out there.

[ccexplore]

"Twang" - A song that uses melodies from traditional song "Ten Green Bottles", Chopin's funeral march and Wagner's "Here Comes the Bride".

I'm not sure where "twang" came from, but the article's correct about the three melodies that were used in that one.  I always thought (and I'm still fairly sure) it was a remix of the three that was done specifically for Lemmings, rather than a pre-existing song/arrangement.

[finlay]

It's worth noting that this one, while you've labelled it "O little town of Bethlehem", is used for other songs too – the youtube video labels it "All beautiful the march of days". Wikipedia calls it Forest Green – and unlike "Twang", which I'm dubious about too, I had the story of Forest Green relayed to me (it was a folk song that was co-opted for "O little town of Bethlehem") by my musicologist friend when I was staying with him a few weeks ago, so it's definitely real. I then relayed back that it'd been combined with the riff from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" in the Lemmings track and we laughed about it all.

[Simon]

Added the info about twang and Forest Green to first post.

Coming round the mountain is probably one of the most re-texted songs. One German children's variation translates roughly to: "From the blue mountains we come, our teacher is exactly as dumb as we are. With the glasses on his nose, he looks like an easter bunny."

-- Simon

[Nortaneous]

The only example I can think of on the PC where you may have original Lemmings music playing while playing ONML levels, is the (or maybe "one of the") Windows version that comes with both sets of levels in the same game.

I think it was DOS, but it definitely did have both sets of levels on the same disk.

"Twang" - A song that uses melodies from traditional song "Ten Green Bottles", Chopin's funeral march and Wagner's "Here Comes the Bride".

I'm not sure where "twang" came from, but the article's correct about the three melodies that were used in that one.  I always thought (and I'm still fairly sure) it was a remix of the three that was done specifically for Lemmings, rather than a pre-existing song/arrangement.

I'd guess the same thing, especially considering that the Forest Green arrangement does something similar. The only reference I can find for the name besides Wikipedia and Youtube is this page. What's it called in the data files?

[finlay]

Ten Lem (at least it is on the mac. someone who has the Amiga midi files could confirm this – I think the Amiga midis were simply taken and inserted into the mac version in a resource format. After all, I think the data files are the only place where titles like TIM1 and all that are even mentioned, so we must know it from somewhere...)

[ccexplore]

Ten Lem (at least it is on the mac. someone who has the Amiga midi files could confirm this – I think the Amiga midis were simply taken and inserted into the mac version in a resource format. After all, I think the data files are the only place where titles like TIM1 and all that are even mentioned, so we must know it from somewhere...)

The Amiga version actually uses MODs not MIDIs.  I may have remembered incorrectly, but I think the Mac version also aren't MIDIs either IIRC, even if they may sound like it.  You are probably at least half correct about the tracks being copied and pasted into the mac version, although the instrument samples are definitely different.

I think the MOD file format does have places for track names that may have the name of the various songs, I'll have to check though.

For the PC version, the adlib.dat actually contains extra stuff (possibly a full test program, or at least remnants of it including the text) that also spells out the names of the tunes as the developers refer to them [note: order listed obviously different from the order you hear them in the game, and sorry I don't remember offhand which corresponds to which]:

Code: [Select]

Ad-Lib Music/FX Driver - (c) 1991 Sound Images   Tel. 061 773 4541

                        ~ Lemmings ~


Press - A - Awesome             L - Tim1
        B - BeastI              M - Tim2
        C - BeastII             N - Tim3
        D - CanCan              O - Tim4
        E - Doggie              P - Tim5
        F - Lemming1            Q - Tim6
        G - Lemming2            R - Tim7
        H - Lemming3            S - Tim8
        I - Menace              T - Tim9
        J - Mountain            U - Tim10
        K - Ten Lemmings

        Shifted A-Q for Sound Effects

                         Space - Fast Forward
                         Enter - Stop Tune
                        Escape - Quit
(You can see for yourself by using the DOS File Decompression tool in Lemmix on adlib.dat, and then examine the extracted data with a hex editor or even Notepad.)