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I’m thinking of songs which have a melody in the first section, a different one in the second, and then both are played together in the final section.

is there a technical term of this?

Kehit565
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    You mean something like McCartney's Silly Love Songs, which last time I counted had something like 6 or 7 distinct melodies over the same chord structure, some of which are overlapped in different parts of the song. – Tetsujin Aug 24 '23 at 12:56
  • actually @PiedPiper I think https://music.stackexchange.com/q/127034/78419 is a better duplicate, which itself was closed as a duplicate of https://music.stackexchange.com/q/64151/78419 – Andy Bonner Aug 24 '23 at 14:09
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    And to Kehit: The short answer is "there isn't a term that would be very useful." Most of the answers mention quodlibet, but while this hits the nail on the head it isn't a very common word outside of Renaissance studies, and it's usually better to just describe the phenomenon than look for a single word. – Andy Bonner Aug 24 '23 at 14:12

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'Counterpoint Songs' perhaps?

Irving Berlin made a trademark out of this technique.

https://music.allpurposeguru.com/2016/10/dueling-melodies-irving-berlins-counterpoint-songs/

There's also Quodlibet where well-known tunes are combines, often humorously, and Mashup where elements of two or more recorded songs are combined and manipulated to form a new entity. There's a thoroughly antique term for you to put in your musical lexicon, and a pretty modern one!

Laurence
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