I thought of another good example. On Jeopardy! some years ago, the category was “before & after”. There was an audio clue “The name of this band, heard here, combines a type of recreational vehicle & a composer:”, and they played Take the Skinheads Bowling by…
Camper Van Beethoven
In a fast food burger joint: Max Frost and the Troopers-Shape of things to Come. Talk about obscure.
A few years back I was pleasantly surprised to hear “Alone Again, Or” by 1960s psychedelic rock band Love play in a chain grocery store. It’s a great song, one of my favorites from the era, but while Arthur Lee and Love had a cult following, they were never one of the top-of-mind groups back in the day. I marveled at how and why that song made its way onto the playlist of whatever service they were using.
A friend was highly amused to hear Alice Cooper’s “Hello, Hurray” in a grocery store one day.
The first time I heard Vienna Teng being played in a Walgreens my jaw dropped. This was early, I think it was “Harbor” but in not sure, definitely off Waking Hour. I had only just discovered her music, but I’d gone to high school with her alter ego.
Another one in that same Walgreens, not long after I had a thought that Sarah McLachlan “When She Loved Me” from Toy Story 2 would make a good male country song I heard that exact cover. No idea who it was, maybe Steve Tyrell.
In a very mainstream UK chain hardware store, “Girlfriend in a coma” by The Smiths. OK, Morrisey…. But it’s a great song.
j
I had a friend whose fiancée was in a coma.
I’d like a lot of Self-Control Credits for never even humming this song in the presence of anyone who knew her (ps, she was all better a week later).
.
My example was being pretty shut off from “civilization” on a little island, back in the early 70s. I’d had a good part of a month with no ‘tunage’, until I stumbled upon a little café with sand floors, native decorations, and… cold beer! I bit into my first burger in way too long, a cassette player got turned on…
And a pure, plaintive voice rang out:
Slippin’ away… headin’ out to L.A.
Gonna sing in the city tonight…
Wait, I know this voice… that’s Richie Furay from Buffalo Springfield… no one in the bar knew anything, it was a mixtape of unknown origin.
Got back home and dug around (pre-internet, y’know) and it was Richie Furay, now with Poco, on a poignant album, Crazy Eyes.
But it’ll always be the beer and burger Slippin’ Away song:
Pleased to hear that!
j
Were there a lot of Amish there?
" In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" In a Portland elevator three years ago.
The church my wife worked for 12 years ago was preparing their big Easter cantata. She was conducting and playing piano and I ran the soundboard for practices when the regular guy couldn’t make it. There was one song – I don’t know the title – that I recognized while having lunch at the Chik-fil-A a year or so later.
“Cat’s in the Cradle,” as the hold music at a pediatrician’s office.
Not a one.
I remember being a little bit surprised years ago when I realized the music NPR was playing in between programs was a smooth jazz cover of Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy”.
Being fitted for contact lenses back in 1972, the eye clinic’s Muzak started playing an instrumental version of the theme from Star Trek.
First and only time I’ve ever heard it outside of TV.
Just this morning in Dunelm, Shoreham (“Home Furnishings”) my distracted consciousness gradually realized that the muzak they were playing was…Changes by David Bowie. Good Lord.
j
I was at work a number of years ago, when we realized the muzak was playing a version of the theme to Sesame Street. One of my co-workers was incensed. “What do they think we are - a bunch of babies?”
Shopping at Highland Farms a couple of years ago, the Muzak started playing a tune that took me a few seconds to identify.
It was “Tommy” by The Who, which I probably hadn’t heard since I played it on the trombone in my High School’s marching band.