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The king of rock n' roll himself based this ballad on an 18th Century piece by French composer Jean-Paul-Égide Martini. It was covered many more times, most famously by UB40 who had a massive hit with it on both sides of the Atlantic in 1993.

Elvis Presley

2. Bright Eyes: Road To Joy / Beethoven: Ode to Joy

Indie folk sensation Conor Oberst used the melody to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy as an inspiration for this melancholic foray which featured on his 2005 album I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. The cynical, world-weary lyrics are hardly joyful and would probably have Herr Beethoven turning in his grave.

3. The Streets: Same Old Thing / DvoÅ™ák: Symphony No. 9, "From The New World"

Mike Skinner cleverly sampled and repeated a phrase from Antonín DvoÅ™ák’s popular symphony to create a menacing backing track to his social commentary of impoverished working class life. Part of his debut Original Pirate Material LP, released in 2002.

Listen to Soul Music: DvoÅ™ák's New World Symphony

For one of the most famous ballads of all time, Carmen freely admitted that he lifted the chords for the verse of the song from the slow movement of Rachmaninov’s emotionally-charged Piano Concerto No. 2, as it complemented the tone of the song.

Janelle Monáe

"I can't imagine that Rachmaninov was happy when he was writing the second Symphony and second Piano Concerto," he mused when interviewed about it. Interestingly, Carmen thought he was able to use the piece freely, but later had to settle with the Rachmaninov estate as the music wasn’t in the public domain.

The song has achieved long-time success due to its inclusion in several major Hollywood films – as well as being a massive hit for Céline Dion in 1996 – which just goes to show there’s good money to be made from singing about the misery of solitude!

5: William Orbit / Barber: Adagio for Strings

One of modern dance music’s best known tracks, the Ferry Corsten remix of William Orbit’s electronic rendition of Barber’s famous 1936 piece has created euphoria across dancefloors worldwide. Orbit released two albums of classical covers – Pieces in a Modern Style 1 & 2 – creating electronic versions of classical pieces by both modern and traditional composers including Vivaldi, Beethoven and John Cage.

Having already been inspired to use Bach’s Toccata in D minor for the guitar riff on their song Plug In Baby, rock band Muse then went on to use the peals from Elgar’s Nimrod to add majesty to their epic track The Globalist on their seventh album, Drones. Incidentally, this was also covered by William Orbit in Pieces in a Modern Style.

7. Janelle Monáe: Say You’ll Go / Debussy: Clair de Lune

American singer and rapper Janelle Monáe samples Claude Debussy on her lush, other-wordly Say You’ll Go, following in the footsteps of Ella Fitzgerald who also used the French "Impressionist" composer’s Rêverie as inspiration for her track, My Reverie.