It took me forever to figure out that the Buffalo Springfield song I really liked was called “For What It’s Worth” - (Stop, hey, what’s that sound?)
Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar-winning score to The Omen, especially its “Ave Satani” chorus, was very likely influenced by Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, but none of the latter work is present.
That song by The Who that many people call “Teenage Wasteland” is really named Baba O’Riley.
While we’re here, does anybody know the name of the piano piece used in the chase scenes of The Keystone Kops movies? You know, duntaladunt-duntaladunt-duntala-duntala-duntala-dunt.
Everyone has heard “The Entertainer,” but I don’t think a lot of people know the name - I didn’t until fairly recently. I forget the author - Scott Joplin, maybe?
Is that the song you were thinking of, Fear Itself? Agh, how do I ask that? 
Oh, and another song nobody knows the name of is The Powerhouse, which appears in every cartoon where a character in a factory gets smushed and compressed into a little box (or anything of the sort).
When my gee-tar is handy, I often play a few bars of Alice’s Restaurant (without lyrics) and challenge people to name that tune. Everyone recognizes it, but not a lot can name it until I start singing.
Barrytown: I needed to see VH1’s top 100 countdown to know that one!
I can sing it. I also feel the need to point out two things related to this.
a) Even if its only existance was as the theme of MASH the TV series (a logical impossibility, though I’ll address that in my second point), it’s still, by definition, ‘actually a song’.
b) It was written by Robert Altman’s then 14-year old son, Mike (and Johnny Mandel) FOR the movie which is why it was used as the theme of the TV series. (I include the note that Mike Mandel was only 14 when he wrote it for no reason other than it’s a fairly neat little fact. Most 14-year olds music/poetry about suicide ain’t this good, folks. :p)
ACK! Mike Altman! Damn brain!
Scott Joplin wrote “The Entertainer”, and the movie The Sting made it famous, but it’s not chase scene music, and it doesn’t fit the rhythm pattern Fear Itself gives above.
I came into this thread specifically to post that. There’s no “the,” though. It’s Powerhouse, by Raymond Scott, and believe it or not it was never intended for use in a cartoon. He was an experimental musician who was trying to make real music that is evocative of a specific place or experience, and damn did he accomplish that - it’s a pity he’s not better-known. Several of his pieces have been used in cartoons from Looney Tunes on.
I didn’t think so, but I don’t know my Keystone Kops. Hmm…
Wow! Okay, this BARELY fits the topic… but if there are any Monty Python fans out there, I just learned something interesting. There’s a song they sing in a couple of sketches, I’d always wondered what it was. It’s in the Mattress sketch, for one.
Well, as I was searching for something else (for the “Lyrics that Make You Cringe” thread), I found it! It’s called Jerusalem, and it’s by Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
It starts “And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
on England’s pleasant pastures seen?”
I thought it was either a hymn or an original song (because I though the first line was “And did those teeth…” 
Alice’s Restaurant–the melody was used at the ‘8’ song on Sesame Street.
Good Call! 
This is exactly the sort of song I was thinking of when I started this thread. I have heard this song dozens of times yet have never known, or even given thought to, the title.
Actually, I always thought that he was singing about people getting hit with rocks. I thought that it was about remaining good-natured and upbeat when you are forced to go through life troubles and tribulations.
Personally, I think Dylan had both meanings in mind when he wrote the song.
I only found out recently that “The Benny Hill Music” is called “Yackety Sax.”
Fear Itself, going by your spelling, I’m thinking that it’s the same classically-influenced intro that starts the band Extreme’s “Play With Me.” Does that help anyone identify it?
Actually, it is originally a poem (ca 1804) by William Blake, melody added later (1916) by Charles Parry. ELP covered it on their album “Brain Salad Surgery”.
William Blake - Rather an interesting person.
And do many realise that the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey is actually called “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, by Richard Strauss, and not “Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey” ?!?!