What's the music in Donkey Kong?

[Sock Master]

Does anyone else get a sense of familiarity when they hear some of the tunes in Donkey Kong?
Like the music is similar to, or inspired by other music?

I've heard that the intro music when Kong is climbing the ladders at the beginning of the game is based on the theme music from Dragnet:

Maybe not as obvious, but once you hear it you can't unhear it...  The music that plays when the 1st rivets screen is completed is totally the opening from Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant":

I never made a connection before, but after hearing a variation of Donkey Kong's "How high can you get?" tune between stages in Sky Skipper, it immediately struck me that this sounds very familiar... and then Billy Joel's "Don't Ask Me Why" started playing in my head:   (edit: This song was released as a single and playing on the radio at the time DK was being developed!)

I bet the game's programmers used other music as inspiration for the tunes in Donkey Kong.

Could the music from Rivets 2 also be inspired by some other song?
Or the other end-of-barrel-stage music?  The hammer tune??  The death sound???

[Adam_Mon]

Wow, this is really interesting.

I could have sworn there was a yt video where someone did a a fairly indept analysis of the music in dk but couldn't find it. I also remeber a poster (maybe on here?) who apparentley found hidden music within the code iirc.

[Sock Master]

The video might make an interesting watch. I'll see if I can find it.

I found a web page with some information about the hidden/unused music in DK.
http://tcrf.net/Donkey_Kong_(Arcade)#Unused_Music

Those too, sound familiar... but maybe it's because they share themes with DK's other music?  But it'd be interesting if they also borrow from other music.

[krehztim]

On a side note - is there a name for the score font on these games?

[marinomitch13]

I think Dave McCrary made the connection between DK's music and some sort of classical piece of music (something by Bach?) he used to play on guitar. I've always thought that maybe there was some connection between DK's and Wizard of War's intro music.

[marky_d]

I always thought the music played during barrel boards closely resembled the bass line to The Ballad of John and Yoko.

[Sock Master]

I always thought the music played during barrel boards closely resembled the bass line to The Ballad of John and Yoko.

It really does, doesn't it.  I realized it also sounds an awful lot like Don't Be Cruel by Elvis Presley:

[xelnia]

The barrel tune is a pretty standard riff blues/rock riff you could probably find in dozens of songs from '50s and '60s. It's a little more rhythmically frantic in DK, but the pitch progression is pretty common...so common that I doubt it could be nailed down to (or was inspired by) one particular song. The hammer tune is basically just a bugle call. I don't think it matches any US Army bugle calls, but there are countless bugle calls out there.

[homerwannabee]

Donkey Kong 3 also has it's own sounds that it gets from popular music.

The bees sound are a version of flight of the bumblebee.
DK3 Bees

Flight of the Bumblebee

The super spray is from the Camptown Races song
Super spray

Camptown Races song

[Svavar]

I think Dave McCrary made the connection between DK's music and some sort of classical piece of music (something by Bach?) he used to play on guitar. I've always thought that maybe there was some connection between DK's and Wizard of War's intro music.

I am almost 100% sure it's from classical music. This music goes way beyond video games or television.