In 1976 Elton John & Kiki Dee had a global hit with their sassy, light-hearted, cute duet, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” …
…which is the exact same name of the latest by Backstreet Boys, except that theirs isn’t sassy or lighthearted, rather, it’s a serious song about love and commitment.
I’m not that kind of person who can fall in and out of love with you
That’s not what love’s supposed to do
BSB lit the fuse for the 90s Boy Band craze, and now they are grown-ups, celebrating their 20th anniversary–you can clearly see on their video, and also by the content of their new song, that they aren’t boys anymore.
“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” is their first release since 2013, and it’s skyrocketed into #17 on Adult Top 40 and #26 on the Top 40 charts.
Songs with the same name remind us of Humphrey Bogart’s remark in “Casablanca” –“of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
Rephrasing that to “of all the words in the English language, isn’t it incredible that completely different kinds of songs can have the exact same title?”
One would think with literally thousands of word combinations that no hit song title would ever be borrowed for a different tune, but there are numerous examples of this happening: “Shout” by the Isley Brothers and “Shout” the 80’s hit by Tears For Fears, and “One” from 3 Dog Night in the late 60’s to “One” by U2 in the early 90’s and the first Motown hit, Barrett Strong’s “Money” and Pink Floyd’s classic “Money.”