# Music that has unremovable associations for you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 16, 2018, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277 "2018-05-16T12:00:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/1 "2018-05-16T12:00:39Z")
That is, a piece of classical music or an old popular song, its context grown hazy in the public mind, is harnessed to promote a product or prominently used as theme music for some movie or show, and gets associated with that, rather than its initial context. The classic case for this (no doubt dying away, now that the generations move on) is the way the “William Tell Overture” was irrevocably tied to _The Lone Ranger_. That may be evaporating, but as long as old Warner Brothers cartoons are popular, other portions of the overture will be associate with Bugs Bunny. Another older example – I didn’t realize until several years ago that the theme Alfred Hitchcock used for his 1950s TV show (and which then became associated with he himself) was a pre-existing piece of music, _Funeral March for a marionette_ by Gounod A more recent example (but still pretty old) is the overture from _Carmen_, better known, I suspect, as the _Bad News Bears_ theme. I was spared this association, because I didn’t care for the movie, and I grew up listening to Carmen (My mom’s favorite “cleaning house” music) Or the _Steak – It’s What’s for Dinner_ music, better known as “Hoedown” from Aaron Copland’s _Rodeo_ I swear, when I first thought of this thread I had some very recent use in mind, but I can’t think of it now. Maybe Dopers can suggest some very recent examples. This sort of thing isn’t forever – once the generation that had the association in mind starts to die off, or simply forgets the association, it dies. One of the Big Three networks in New York used to use music from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to close the local Evening News, but that’s gone now. Back in the 1930s Universal Studio somehow decided that the music from “Swan Lake” was somehow “creepy”. They used it as the opening music for the 1931 _Dracula_ (practically the only music in the movie), then used it for _[The Mummy_, for which it was spectacularly inappropriate. I don’t think anyone even suspects that “Swan Lake” is creepy these days. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/2 "2018-05-16T12:08:33Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/3 "2018-05-16T12:25:58Z")
I had known that the William Tell Overture was the theme from _The Lone Ranger_. But I hadn’t realized for years that the [morning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4xcDl_YD8Q) theme and the [storm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKrz1pl9oPw) theme were used all the time in Warner Brothers cartoons and are still occasionally used today. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/4 "2018-05-16T12:33:28Z")
_Entrance of the Gladiators_ is probably irrevocably tied to the circus. For a certain segment of the population, hearing “Ecstacy of Gold” (from _The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly_ soundtrack) means Metallica is about to take the stage. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/5 "2018-05-16T12:48:04Z")
“My Life” by Billy Joel will forever be connected to “Bosom Buddies”. Also, “Wayne’s World” pretty much stole “Bohemian Rhapsody”. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/6 "2018-05-16T12:52:29Z")
After the Smurfs were invented as comic book characters by Peyo, and after they were little figurines available at BP Service Stations, but before they were a regular TV series, there was a movie called _[The Smurfs And The Magic Flute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs_and_the_Magic_Flute)_, which was essentially a pilot for the series. And they borrowed a lot from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” for their incidental soundtrack, [along with other recognisable classical pieces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs_(TV_series)#Use_of_classical_music) that, whenever I hear them, I associate with the animated show. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/7 "2018-05-16T12:58:06Z")
Some of us got all our classical music education from Bugs Bunny. I dare not attend a posh symphony evening, because I just know I’ll start to sing along: “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit…” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/8 "2018-05-16T14:00:30Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > After the Smurfs were invented as comic book characters by Peyo, and after they were little figurines available at BP Service Stations, but before they were a regular TV series, there was a movie called _[The Smurfs And The Magic Flute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs_and_the_Magic_Flute)_, which was essentially a pilot for the series. And they borrowed a lot from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” for their incidental soundtrack, [along with other recognisable classical pieces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs_(TV_series)#Use_of_classical_music) that, whenever I hear them, I associate with the animated show. When _the Smurfs and the Magic Flute_ came out in the US in 1983, after the play _Amadeus_ had been a hit (but a year before the Forman film version), My mind instantly joined the two: “Dear God, why must these Little Blue Men be the Instruments of Your Glory, and not Me???” “Gee, that’s just Smurfy, Mr. Salieri!” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/9 "2018-05-16T14:02:13Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Some of us got all our classical music education from Bugs Bunny. > > I dare not attend a posh symphony evening, because I just know I’ll start to sing along: “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit…” Pepper Mill certainly did. When I hear _The Blue Danube_, I think of _2001: a Space Odyssey_, but my wife thinks of the Buzzard and the Ugly Duckling. She emphasizes this by singing "QuackQuackQuackQuackQuack -- quack quack! -- quack quack!" ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/10 "2018-05-16T14:50:13Z")
“American Girl” by Tom Petty and “Goodbye Horses” from Q Lazzarus are forever associated with Silence of the Lambs for me, especially “Goodbye Horses” associated with Ted Levine dancing with his junk tucked between his legs. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/11 "2018-05-16T14:53:56Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Some of us got all our classical music education from Bugs Bunny. > > I dare not attend a posh symphony evening, because I just know I’ll start to sing along: “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit…” Same here. I saw my very first opera - The Barber of Seville- last year and pictured the Bugs Bunny cartoon the entire time. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/12 "2018-05-16T16:07:23Z")
**[Also Sprach Zarathustra](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFPwm0e_K98)**, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/13 "2018-05-16T16:43:36Z")
_Bittersweet Symphony_ will always evoke the image of a young Sarah Michelle Gellar getting caught with her cocaine cross and crying as Reese Witherspoon drives off in a cool car. I love the song, I love _Cruel Intentions_, but they will always and forever be linked in my head. Also, EMF’s _Unbelievable_ still sounds like “[Crumbelieveable](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjctVBg6K8)” from that stupid Kraft commercial a few years back. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/14 "2018-05-16T16:50:54Z")
The Flower Duet is forever associated with The Hunger. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/15 "2018-05-16T17:09:10Z")
There are a couple of pieces of classical music that are stuck indelibly in the minds of a lot of people over here because of an advertising association: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvNdhriwGuM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvNdhriwGuM) (the “Baldy Man” character in this was a regular in a popular sketch show) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJMAVfkI0io](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJMAVfkI0io) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mq59ykPnAE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mq59ykPnAE) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/16 "2018-05-16T17:10:15Z")
[ul] [/ul] > [@Doug\_K](#): > > The Flower Duet is forever associated with The Hunger. And, over here, British Airways ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/17 "2018-05-16T17:19:31Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > “My Life” by Billy Joel will forever be connected to “Bosom Buddies”. The other day I was driving a junior colleague to a business meeting and “My Life” came on the radio and I spent 5 minutes explaining Tom Hanks early career choices to the younger guy. ---
**Author:** ![BobBitchin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7ea924/32.png) [@BobBitchin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobBitchin)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/18 "2018-05-16T17:20:50Z")
O’Fortuna as Ozzy’s entrance music.🆒 ARE YOU READY TO ROCK AND ROLL?!?!?!? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/19 "2018-05-16T17:36:06Z")
[Listen to the Mockingbird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGND73NdaLs) will always be The Three Stooges. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2018, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277/20 "2018-05-16T18:39:37Z")
We have an ice hockey team that plays at the War Memorial and the lights are dimmed and they come out onto the rink to ‘Hells Bells’ by AC/DC 😛 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-that-has-unremovable-associations-for-you/814277.md?page=2)