I lack the number of divisions it would take for me to enforce my will upon the participants in this thread. Go crazy, man!
I used to think that “Entry of the Gladiators” must’ve accompanied some opera or something set in ancient Rome, and later became circus clown music. Turns out, it was just a march, and he named it that because he liked gladiators.
A.k.a. “Thunder and Blazes.”
I’ve just looked it up on Wikipedia, and I hadn’t realized what a complex history the piece has. Mussorgsky himself worked it into several projects, After Mussorgsky’s death Rimsky-Korskov adapted the music from one of these later versions into a new composition of the same name.
Then Leopold Stokowski got his hands on it and adapted and rewrote it again. This is the version he used in Fantasia
Stokowski stated that he based it on the Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement in form and content (though notably without the “fanfare” that marks the entrance of Chernobog), but on Mussorgsky’s original in orchestration. However, like Rimsky-Korsakov, Stokowski had no copy of the original tone poem from 1867, so he did what he felt Mussorgsky would have done, being somewhat familiar with Mussorgsky’s style.
I suspect I’ve never really heard Mussorgsky’s version at all. Or Rimsky-Korsakov’s, for that matter. I certainly never heard a fanfare for Chernobog.
Also “Silver Bells,” from the somewhat more Christmassy (but mostly forgotten) film The Lemon Drop Kid.
And the songwriter’s wife. (and future Bond villain)
“I Just Called to Say I Love You” is Stevie Wonder’s biggest hit. It was originally written for a mostly forgotten movie The Woman In Red.
I don’t know what the “Sabre Dance” was written for originally, but it just makes me think of spinning plates when I hear it.
I don’t know if this is what the OP was looking for but the William Tell Overture has mostly lost its connection with the opera William Tell. Most people now associate it with the Lone Ranger. (Assuming you’re old enough to have associations with that character.)
“Theme from New York, New York” had a much longer afterlife than the movie it first appeared in, to the point that most people just call it “New York, New York.” (And Frank Sinatra’s version has all but overshadowed Liza Minnelli’s from the soundtrack.)
The musical Top Banana hasn’t been revived (to my knowledge, by anyone, anywhere) since its Broadway run in the early 50s, but its title number lives on.
How many people other than musical theater junkies can name the show that gave us “Who Can I Turn To?” and “The Joker”?
The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd
I can’t honestly say that Elmer Bernstein’s score for The Magnificent Seven really outlived what it was associated with - I think the film is still well-known. But for years Phillip Morris used it to promote Marlboro cigarettes through the cowboy tie-in (ironic, considering that at first the cigarette was marketed as a “luxury” brand, its name taken from a British market town. Later it was marketed as a “women’s cigarette”. In the 1950s it was re-imagined as a macho cigarette, advertised with sea captains, athletes and cowboys. The cowboys won out.)
As a kid, I knew about the Marlboro connection, but it wasn’t until I finally saw the movie that I knew where the music really came from.
It looked for a while as if Aaron Copland’s ballet Rodeo might suffer a similar fate, with more people associating it with the National Livestock and Meat Board’s Beef – It’s what’s for Dinner TV advertisements, but those seem to have disappeared now.
A Summer Place is mainly known today as the film whose theme is “Theme from A Summer Place.” (And it’s not even the main theme.)
More people know “Silver Bells” than the movie it came from, The Lemon Drop Kid.
nm
Oddball example: the Andante movement from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 was featured on the soundtrack of the 1967 film Elvira Madigan. Decades later, that film has pretty much dropped off the radar - and yet classical music listeners young and old still refer to No. 21 as “the Elvira Madigan concerto.”
I still hear “I’ll Be There for You” by the Rembrandts on oldies radio, two decades after the finale of Friends.
Also, I don’t know if Herb Alpert’s “Spanish Flea” was ever associated with anything else, but these days it’s forever associated with delays, technical difficulties, being put on hold, etc.
The Carpenters’ big hit we’ve Only Just Begun was originally written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols for Crocker-Citizens Commercial Bank in California to use for a schmaltzy commercial about a couple starting out. The Carpenters didn’t even know about it until they saw the commercial on TV (and it had already been covered at least once.) the Carpenters recorded their version and it instantly lit up. How many people remember Crocker-Citizens Bank?
the song was a breakthrough in marketing for the bank, but ultimately not a success:
The unique approach of focusing on storytelling and customer experience, rather than bank products, helped set a new standard for advertising in the industry.[4] However, the campaign ultimately attracted mostly young adults who did not yet have sufficient collateral for loans, which was not the bank’s primary target demographic. As a result, Crocker-Citizens National Bank discontinued the commercial despite its popularity, though its impact on advertising and music endured.
Crocker-Citizens was acquire by Wells Fargo in 1986
“Frolic,” best known as the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm, first appeared in a bank commercial.
I can’t speak for the general public, but when I hear “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and “The Blue Danube”, I think of space travel, not theology or geography. Stanley Kubrick did perverse things with people’s musical memories.