Seemingly 'inapropriate' song appearances

[Des Nilsen]

I can't quite think of a thread title to suit what I'm getting at, nothing clinical and descriptive anyway.

Have you ever heard a song somewhere you'd think it least likely to appear? - for example catching something obscure and/ or unusual on a rather mundane radio/ club playlist?

Two examples from me:

On my sister's 16th birthday we went as a family to a Tom Cobleigh restaurant just outside Leicester called 'The Bees Knees'. It's a dodgy place in that way most chain family pubs are - great fucking boats hanging off the ceiling and medieval instruments of torture on the walls (at least that's what they looked like). They also had an unrecognisable playlist of lesser-known 50's & 60's cover versions.
However just as I was munching on a big juicy cheeseburger I heard a familiar lyric - "Overhead the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air, and deep beneath the rolling waves, in labyrinths of coral caves..." - they were playing (at a poor but audible volume) Pink Floyd's Echoes - all 23:31 minutes of it!
"Hey, listen... LISTEN!" I said, nudging my sister and parents, but they nodded and carried on talking.
Christ, all 23 odd minutes of the thing in a family restaurant at just past six in the evening with the place full of people. It was quite cool, but quite surreal.

Another nice but unexpected song appearance was at work the winter before last, during a 12-hour night shift. I was doing the dullest of the dull work in this huge factory warehouse, and I had to put up with horrible mishy-mashy Indian easy-listening... something - weird stuff that tried to contain several rock and surf guitar styles amidst an orchestra and a male and female vocal exchange.
In the middle of all this samey arse there came two familiar classics - Jimi Hendrix's Castles Made Of Sand & Foxy Lady. The intro and backwards guitar solo of the former soothed me a great deal. Lovely.

So... lets have you own similar experiences.

-

[Lt Plonker]

I heard Andrew Gold's Never Let Her Slip Away playing in the Uni cafe the other day. A surreal experience considering the type of shit they pump out over the Uni radio.

[Peking O]

Perhaps not quite what you were looking for, but the appearance of "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in the movie "Dumb and Dumber" is definitely highly inappropriate.

[Ambient Sheep]

This is a great idea for a thread, and I know I've been there myself...but memory cells just won't work.

[DrJ]

Good thread.

Today at about 12.30 in the afternoon the DJ on radio wished Bob Dylan a hppy birthday and then proceeded to play "If Not For You" and then went back to playing Anastacia afterwards, but it was a surprisingly beautiful moment of music a world apart from the usual playlist rubbish.

Another time I was working nights and about 4am I'm sitting in the tea room and the beserk pirate station in the middle of obscure 80's classics (such as Sonic Boom Boy) played the late 80's incarnation of the Tomorrow's World theme tune, which triggered a lot of joy.

[elderford]

I was in a mediocre-chain pub on a weekday lunch time, sat amongst the business types and pensioners idling away my break with a pint.

The usual Lighthouse Family stylee in-house constant music was replaced with a medium volume play of The Velvet Underground's Heroin.

Sublime moment as everyone else in the pub either didn't hear it or ignored it, for me it was the beginning of the end of civilisation that the Velvet's could be used as background music.

[Jed Maxwell]

Last few times I've been in local Safeways instead of usual Simply Red fare have heard Stone Roses, Smiths, Bob Dylan, Happy Mondays, Stones, Air, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Charlatans and Doves.
Don't know if this is standard for all stores or just one manger with good taste, hope it isn't ended when they are swallowed by the preditory beast that is Morrisons.

The ultimate would be if one day they actually played 'Beyond Safeways' by Bawl.

(-or indeed 'Mum's Gone to Iceland', but can't remember who thats by).

[smoker]

this is kind of related. the prodigy used to have, or for all i know may still have, a backing guitatist called gizzard puke. or, when he taught guitar lessons at my school, graham (gizz) butt.

anyway, one summer me and my family are on holiday in crete. we're on a tour bus going round the island's touristy spots, and i'm listening to jilted generation on my walkman, very loudly. suddenly i remember something i'd wanted to tell my brother and lean across to him and say "you know gizz butt?"

his horrified look stopped me continuing with, "he plays for the prodge now", as i relaised that due to the very loud music coming through my headphones, i had badly misjudged the pitch of my voice and had now alerted the entire bus, and probably most of the surrounding countryside, to the existence of one gizz butt. mortifying

[Purple Tentacle]

(-or indeed 'Mum's Gone to Iceland', but can't remember who thats by).

Bennett.  Why do I know this and yet can't remember where I left my keys?

[Crazy Penis]

Quite a few years ago I was at my regular cluubing haunt with a load of mates. The club was so packed and the atmosphere so good that regular trips to the packed chillout room were neccessary.
The DJ in the chillout room was spinning loads of old skool tracks, just like he did every week. In the middle of his set he managed to drop in 'Sitting on the dock of the bay'. which prompted a big smilie sing-a-long.

[Mr Flunchy]

Sitting in McDonalds and hearing 'Design for Life' was a bit odd to say the least.

[the hum]

This is not quite what you were getting at but I do remember thinking it quite peculiar when New Order performed Regret for TOTP on the Baywatch set.  They stood and performed the tune quite passively amongst throngs (or should that be thongs) of scantily-clad well tanned ladees.  David Hasselhoff even dropped in for a cheesy pose.  I dunno, just odd.

I also heard Yes' Owner of a Lonely Heart playing in my local Co-Op a few weeks ago.

[butnut]

This is not quite what you were getting at but I do remember thinking it quite peculiar when New Order performed Regret for TOTP on the Baywatch set.  They stood and performed the tune quite passively amongst throngs (or should that be thongs) of scantily-clad well tanned ladees.  David Hasselhoff even dropped in for a cheesy pose.  I dunno, just odd.

That's a bit like the clip I once saw of Radiohead performing on some god awful cheap TV show with girls in bikinis and with a painted backdrop of a beach or something. I imagine it was probably about the time when 'Creep' took off.  Wouldn't it be great if they did something like that now?

[Lumiere]

Many years ago, getting a bollocking from a teacher just as the local rock radio show started playing killing in the name of by Rage Against The Machine. The uncut version, with 'Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me' left in.

[Bollock Chops]

A few years ago, I was standing in a dole queue, wating to sign-on, when what should come over the piped-in music system?

'We're on the Road to Nowhere' by Talking Heads.

The funny bastards.

[ozziechef]

I remember a couple of years back I was sitting in Macdonalds one lunch time. It was packed and the queue was huge as people waited for their various burger based products. When all of a sudden Otis Reading - Sitting on the Dock of the Bay came on.

Now maybe it was my imagination or maybe time has played a cruel trick on my memory. But I'm sure as those first words left Otis' recorded mouth the whole Macdonalds fell silent as everyone began tapping toes and enjoying the music. For the entire duration of the song no one uttered a word. When it was finished some euro dance crap came on and I left. But as I stepped out into the rain I knew I'd just experieneced the coming together of all walks of human life in recognition of a musical genius..... or something like that

[morgs]

Many years ago, getting a bollocking from a teacher just as the local rock radio show started playing killing in the name of by Rage Against The Machine. The uncut version, with 'Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me' left in.

I'm sure Sean Hughes used to do that as a sketch...

[Rev]

A few years ago, I was standing in a dole queue, wating to sign-on, when what should come over the piped-in music system?

'We're on the Road to Nowhere' by Talking Heads.

The funny bastards.

I was in a job centre a few years back where the soundtrack album to 'Twin Peaks' was being played.  Pleasant background music in itself, I suppose, but it drags a good few associations with it...  which is why I had an uncontrollable fit of the giggles as I watched people shuffling around peering at the boards with the 'doo doo doo doo doooooooo' tune shimmying through the air.

[lazyhour]

I was in a job centre a few years back where the soundtrack album to 'Twin Peaks' was being played.  Pleasant background music in itself, I suppose, but it drags a good few associations with it...  which is why I had an uncontrollable fit of the giggles as I watched people shuffling around peering at the boards with the 'doo doo doo doo doooooooo' tune shimmying through the air.

I was in my local Cancer Research Shop last week (as usual, there was no actual research going on), and they were playing the whole Twin Peaks soundtrack album.  I looked around for any non-elderly worker who I felt sure would have been the culprit.  There were none.  It was then that I realised that I was being very ageist, and that the most likely explanation was that one or all of the very old ladies who were running the shop were fucking hardcore David Lynch fans.

It was nice, anyway.

[Ghost of Troubled Joe]

"Sugar Kane" by Sonic Youth was once played in a local pub, much to my surprise.

[Jemble Fred]

The last time I was in an Indian restaurant I was so bemused by the sitar versions of Abba songs that it quite ruined my chicken tikka.

[kidsick5000]

Perhaps not quite what you were looking for, but the appearance of "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds in the movie "Dumb and Dumber" is definitely highly inappropriate.

That was very welcome. But not as strange as "Love +1" by Haircut 100 in SE7EN.

The Kwik save in Wallasey used to play Beatles albums on a Saturday which was just a stroke of genius while being strangely non muzak enough to throw you the first time.

As was the chinese restraunt that thought nothing of playing Candle in The wind (Diana version).  Never play a funeral song when your eating out.

And of course theres the toatlly wrong song appearing during those more intimate moments

[dan dirty ape]

I went on a first date to a bar that played the Manic Street Preachers' 'The Holy Bible' in its entirety as background music.  Project Orange near Clapham Junction if you want to avoid 'The Intense Humming Of Evil' soundtracking an evenings' wooing, or if you're weird.

[Almost Yearly]

What follows is not a lie.


My friend Simon was unfortunate enough to fall in love with and marry a french girl. I say "unfortunate" not for lazy francophobic reasons, but because it was contrived by the bride's family that the happy couple should make their grand entrance into the reception standing side by side in a home made bottomless boat, which was supported by shoulder straps so that its hull was around thigh level, done up like a big swan with a head and neck and all covered in white feathers. Everyone sat at their tables, cheering, and on the PA? ... The Final Countdown.