Excellent! I had failed to note the connection between “iPod” and “podcast.” This is rather like how we still “turn on” a light, even though most lights haven’t required turning anything since about 1920.
Sort of (i just looked it up). From Wikipedia:
Norman describes the distinctive rhythm of the guitar in the first few bars of the “James Bond Theme” as “Dum di-di dum dum”. He said that it was inspired by “Bad Sign, Good Sign”, a song he composed for a musical adaptation of V. S. Naipaul’s novel A House for Mr Biswas, set in the Indian community in Trinidad.
So, Monty Norman did compose it for Dr, No, but adapted from something he had composed earlier.
The character Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer was created for a Monkey Ward ad campaign, then a song was written for it, Gene Autry sang it, now it’s here to stay.
Also ubiquitous at U.S. sporting events was (is?) a ten-second snippet with the lyrics “Whoa-oa-oa-oa-oah, whoa-oa-oa-oa-oa-oa-oa-oa-oah, whoa-oa-oa-oah.” After years of frustration at having no good way to look up the title, I found out it was from “Kernkraft 400” by Zombie Nation.
Similarly, we talk about dialing a telephone number and about rolling up a car window even though telephones don’t have dials anymore and car windows are not controlled by something that is rotated anymore.
Although The Bangles had been performing the song at live shows for a while, they recorded their version of “Hazy Shade of Winter” for the soundtrack of the now pretty much forgotten movie Less Than Zero. I assume those are clips from the movie we see in the music video.
Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls was written for the largely forgotten Nicholas Cage / Meg Ryan film City of Angels. Possibly because Nicholas Cage as an angel falling in love with a human is arguably one the least absurd and outlandish character he has ever played
Few people seem to know that the 80s classic One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head is actually from the soundtrack of a musical Chess. Although Chess has apparently had a revival on Broadway starring Lea Michelle of Glee fame, but is now closing. So hard to say who outlived who here.
Not quite the same thing, but notable trivia: the term “Grandfather Clock” comes from the 1875 song, and was previously simply called a hall clock or long-case clock.
And the song was about the clock belonging to the narrator’s grandfather.
My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born,
And was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopp’d short—never to go again—
When the old man died.
That surprises me. I would have thought that a lot of people would have, like me, on hearing the song for the first time, thought why the hell is there a song about a chess player?, did a little research, and learned about the play.
I mean, I know it’s from a play…now. Not in 1986, no, but somewhere between. And there wasn’t a lot of easy ways to look it up back then.
I thought it was about Thai sex shops. Later I listened and figured the chess part out myself. Didn’t know it was a play about (called) chess until Wikipedia. Still never been anywhere the play was running.
I’ve seen it (the musical Chess) three times, so it does come around occasionally. Twice by local amateur groups and once the recent revival on Broadway. The music is fantastic from start to finish, but the story has major problems — they’re constantly tinkering with it, never fully successfully.
I’ve seen the play, but long after hearing the song. K-ROQ in LA had it their rotation in the mid-'80s. In-laws took my wife and me to see the musical at The Pantages in LA several years later. My wife was surprised when I sang along, because she’d never heard of the play NOR the song.
And, when it was a hit song, in 1984, the play had not yet ever been performed.
It was released as part of a “concept album” for the musical in '84, and the idea that the writers (Tim Rice, along with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA) had was that the album and its singles would create interest among the public before the premiere of the musical; I remember reading, at the time, one of them being quoted as that, unlike other musicals, they wanted their audience to come into the theater humming the songs, rather than humming them while leaving.
The musical didn’t premiere until May of 1986, on London’s West End. It did reasonably well in London (played for three years), but a revised version for Broadway in '88 was not as well-received critically, and closed after fewer than 100 performances. It failed to win any Oliver Awards in London, or any Tonys on Broadway.
In the years since then, it’s been mostly performed in Europe, and not often in the U.S.; the Broadway revival in 2025 lasted less than a year.
As far as whether the musical was better known that “One Night in Bangkok,” I suspect that depends on whether you are a musical fan, or just a pop music fan; I also suspect that the musical wound up being better-known in England than it was in the U.S.
I’ve known for quite some time that it was from a musical. But despite being able to sing part of the chorus, I don’t think I can recall any other lyrics to it.
But from what I’ve read of the other lyrics, they do reference Bangkok nightlife - only to have the singer denounce it as inferior to chess.
