The International House of Mojo

Yes, you're totally right, I was getting the two mixed up.

Nope, double checked, and it's definitely Wagner's I meant, but I mixed up the name. It's Wagner's Bridal Chorus, not Wedding Chorus. Around the 22 sec mark in Stan's Theme.

Assume you mean Mendelssohn's wedding march.

I can't remember if it was ever confirmed or not but I always assumed this one was Peter McConnell's work - he did most of the rest of Booty Island, and besides that, One of the things that he likes to do quite a lot is take well known or traditional tunes and present them in an unusual arrangement, or quote them in other pieces.

You can find quite a few examples of this scattered about his work. This is one, but you also have the Dem Bones arrangement, and the Rum Rogers drinking game music which I'm pretty sure is his arrangement of Blow The Man Down even though it's not his island (it has his fingerprints all over it), various musical quotations in the DOTT soundtrack, including Red Edison's theme which briefly quotes a Mozart C major sonata and probably some other stuff. Then there's Grim Fandango, the music that plays over Carla's Life Story, Psychonauts, the little quotations in Sascha's level music.

Can I add the Dutch song 'Daar wordt aan de deur geklopt" to the list? The Gambler's Club really sounds like that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ9H7SvoBuU

Stan's theme is basically an elaborated medley of different church music. The Aunt Rhody melody is one of the most well known hymn melodies in my country, and I'm sure that's not a coincidence when it's mixed up with Chopin's Funeral March and a twist on Wagner's Wedding Chorus.

Very Appropriate for the game!

Never a huge fan of Stan’s Theme, but it was better than the hideous one they added in the CD version of the game: https://scummbar.com/mi2/MI1-CD/11%20-%20Stan's%20Previously%20Used%20Ships.mp3

Still, I imagine this was probably meant as an intentional reference that the player was supposed to get, and not some big secret.

Keep these fascinating updates coming!

https://www.mamalisa.com/blog/the-history-of-the-tune-go-tell-aunt-rhody-around-the-world/

From 1752 apparently

Next thing y'all are going to tell me is that there is some sort of Secret of Melee Island or something.

(But I appreciate the music talk)

Enough, guys! There are things better left unknown.

Go Tell Aunt Rhody is a well-known children's folk song that goes back way farther than the 50s. I remember it being in our music book in elementary school -- or am I one in having to take that class where you play those ear-blistering plastic recorders?

When I first played LeChuck's Revenge I recognized the tune immediately. And I think the player is supposed to recognize the tune as well -- I assumed, anyway, that the selection of that song was a wry comment on Stan's new business, given the refrain "the old gray goose is dead."

Can everybody just stop fucking around with everything I think I know about Monkey Island please?

Surely this was meant for Behind Mojo.

If I remember correctly -- and I probably don't -- most of the Booty stuff was done by Bajakian.

I agree with Javier here, even the melody is something that has probably been heard plenty of times in extremely similar iterations. Stan's theme always sounded familiar to me (and I i've never heard this song before).

Still, we should probably have a word with Michael Land. I'd be curious to know what he makes of all this.

It's exactly the same melody though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUawtbNDOoE#t=8s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heulu6HCPqs

Well, this one might be a concidence. This is the most basic chord progression of european/english folk. And Stan's Theme is much more fucked-up than this by some creepy modulations and everything.
What's similar and relatively unusual is the shift from d minor to the respective D major key and the other way round, but that's the case for Stan's theme because it is referring to the Funeral March by Frederic Chopin.

All in all, I think it's probably a coincidence, and we could probably find tons of other folk/children's songs that are similarly similar.