# Samples in Songs **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/samples-in-songs/225363 "2004-01-20T20:59:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/samples-in-songs/225363/1 "2004-01-20T20:59:42Z")
Several songs have quoted audio samples from movies or TV. This is the place to post ones you know, or ask about ones you don’t know. This is for samples only, not quotes. To clarify, I’ll use Guns N’ Roses album _Use Your Illusion II_. **Civil War** : The song opens with “What we’ve got here … is failure to communicate …” from _Cool Hand Luke_, said by Strother Martin. This _is_ a sample. Later in the song there’s a spoken section, “We practice selective annihilation … as popular war advances, peace becomes closer.” Attributed to a ‘Peruvian guerilla general’, but recited by Axl. A spoken quote, _not_ a sample. **Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door** : Contains a bit from _Days of Thunder_. (“You’d just best start sniffing you own rank subjugation man … wouldn’t be luck if you get out of life alive.”) _Sample_. **Breakdown** : A lengthy spoken quote from the movie _Vanishing Point_. Again done by Axl, though, so it’s not a sample. **You Could Be Mine** : Was used in Terminator 2, but does not contain any samples from it; doesn’t count. Also, “With your bitch-slap rappin’ and your cocaine tongue you get nothin’ done” is a quote (self-quote?), so not a sample. Not covered by that album are samples of other songs. This thread is meant to be mainly spoken words, and not just bits of music sampled from other songs, since there are way too many of those. A distinctly different bit of music like a TV show theme (that is actually sampled, not played by the band) would count. A few more : Everclear’s **Ataraxia** : “Today medical science recognizes that some folks aren’t helped by relaxing exercizes . . . makes those who fear they’re about to quit feel like they’re ready to begin, bidding their darkened spirits goodbye, for the calming peace of a cloudless sky.” A separate track just before the song Normal Like You, this is from a promo movie made by Pfizer. The narrator speaks in the same annoying rhymes throughout the very surreal film. (It is available from the Prelinger Archive online at the [Internet Archive](http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php)). Dream Theater’s **Space-Dye Vest** has several. I know one is from the movie _A Room With a View_ (“He’s the sort who can’t love anyone properly …”), but don’t know about the others. One that’s bugged me for a while, but may not be identifiable (or properly a sample) : I think it was part of a rap song, and I heard it around '87 or '88. “Pomp & Circumstance” was playing in the background, with someone saying “Get the gun!” and someone else saying “Gimme five dollars.” Anyone know this? ---
**Author:** ![justplainDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@justplainDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justplainDave)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/samples-in-songs/225363/2 "2004-01-21T03:50:02Z")
I am sorry that I don’t have an answer to your question, but I saw this as an opportunity to ask a question I have had. There is a sample in the song “Wield the Spade” by Oysterhead. The whole song is built around this clip that sounds like something out of a Hitler wannabe’s manifesto. This always intrigued me, and I never knew where it came from. ---
**Author:** ![DogsLunch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DogsLunch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DogsLunch)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/samples-in-songs/225363/3 "2004-01-21T05:23:46Z")
I knew that some of White Zombie’s songs off “AstroCreep 2000” sampled the movie “Omega Man”, but I wondered what movie “Return of the Phantom Stranger” off Rob Zombie’s “Hellbilly Deluxe” sampled. Poking around on the Internet I found [this](http://www.sloth.org/samples/samples.html) site, which organizes groups/songs and sources sampled. ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/samples-in-songs/225363/4 "2004-01-21T06:13:46Z")
This is an unofficial track but there’s a version of “Weapon of Choice” that samples Christopher Walken lines from The Dead Zone and True Romance. “Mope” by the Bloodhound Gang samples Homer Simpson at the end. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/samples-in-songs/225363/5 "2004-01-21T21:49:51Z")
Very cool website, **Dogslunch**. I wouldn’t have guessed “Conan O’Brien” to be the source of the “In Houston they say that?” bit in **Space-Dye Vest**.