"Decomposing Composers" by Monty Python

This is a comedic song based on the fun word play about decomposing composers. The lyrics mention several composers and about how they can't do things living people can, and that while we can hear them, they can't hear us.

With the song being about composers, it makes perfect sense to use actual orchestral music as backup, which is what Monty Python does, using several quotes, but only a couple of which I recognize.

For the parts of the song that the lyrics are sung, the chordal movement is the same as Pachelbel's Canon with similar string instrumentation. However, there is an original melody which is put on top of this chord structure. After an introductory period of just the strings, the original melody is sung on top of this. The next period stays with the overall chord structure, but the strings have much more freedom doing scalar runs within the structure.

Then the music is interrupted by the famous motive of Beethoven's Fifth, which takes a comical role because the instruments glissando down after this motive. It is then repeated in sequence up the scale until it reaches the tonic chord of the original part and the piano does some scalar runs which goes into a repetition of the initial vocal section.

After this the singer just does speaking vocals about the dead composers and there are a whole range of probably classical pieces that I don't recognize. I found one website that said part of it was from "Swan Lake" but I can't confirm that.

Beyond the comical wordplay of decomposing composers, it is really interesting to hear new melodies applied to existing chordal structures and doing some comic play with classic works of music.