[gavinpc]

I'm surprised no one (including the OP) has mentioned "American Tune," which I thought was lifted from a Bach piece but which it turns out Bach himself lifted:

> The tune is based on a melody line from a chorale from Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion, itself a reworking of an earlier secular song, "Mein G'müt ist mir verwirret," composed by Hans Leo Hassler.[3] The melody used for "American Tune" can be heard quite distinctly in part 1, number 21 and number 23 and in part 2, number 54. The melody to "American Tune" is practically identical to that of "Mein G'müt ist mir verwirret" and "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," although Simon expanded on the tune. [0]

Knowing that, the wit of the title starts to rival the mastery of the song.

On the other side, I remember a drum video in which Carter Beauford of Dave Matthews Band shows how the drum groove from "#41" (or some early song of theirs) was taken directly from "50 ways to leave your lover." IIRC the segment where he shows how to play it is captioned "50 ways groove," not "#41 groove." Of course, that probably came from one of Simon's session drummers (not himself), but who cares. Art can much much more ruthless than that, and rightly so.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tune