# Songs forever ruined through association **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 6, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200 "2010-06-06T21:41:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/41 "2010-06-09T01:46:56Z")
Well, I’ve got TWO, for one traumatic, hellish breakup. “Sarah” by Fleetwood Mac for part one. “Still” by the Commodores for the second part of the breakup (it took a while). I couldn’t hear either song for YEARS without breaking down sobbing. In the car, at work, at my mother’s, if I heard either, it was crycrycry. Even today, I’m over it, but I still feel a little funny when I hear those songs…Unless you mean songs used in commercials? No commercial has ever ruined a song, or vice versa, IMO. A great artiste’s major work of art is hardly spoiled as background to a laxative commercial, or whatever - the great artiste is dancing all the way to the bank and ordering a bigger pool to be put in his back yard. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/42 "2010-06-09T02:57:13Z")
Ever since I heard that Preparation H wanted to use Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’ in their commercials, I never hear R of F without smiling. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/43 "2010-06-09T03:07:02Z")
_Ten_ and Ravel’s “Bolero.” ---
**Author:** ![hellpaso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecae2f/32.png) [@hellpaso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hellpaso)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/44 "2010-06-09T03:29:10Z")
[quote=“Lucky\_13, post:32, topic:542200”] I can’t listen to “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan without thinking of those SPCA public-service announcements with the poor little dogs in the shelters. ☹ QUOTE] Yessssss!☹ ---
**Author:** ![breezman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@breezman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/breezman)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/45 "2010-06-09T03:30:32Z")
I’ve heard that the TV show "Out of This World, " from the late 1980s heyday of first-run syndication, ruined “Swing on a Star” for a good number of people (or at least a good percentage of those who actually watched the show). ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/46 "2010-06-09T04:08:37Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Whenever I hear Tom Petty’s American Girl, I think of serial killers all because of The Silence of the Lambs. It’s the song the senator’s daughter is singing in her car when she runs into Buffalo Bill. Ditto [Goodbye Horses](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_DVS_303kQ). ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/47 "2010-06-09T04:31:17Z")
A couple songs that were “our song” with exes who turned out to be Not Good People. I liked the songs before, loved them when they were “ours”, now I can’t hear them without mourning the good parts of a bad relationship. ---
**Author:** ![TheTerribleTako](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@TheTerribleTako](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheTerribleTako)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/48 "2010-06-09T04:50:20Z")
In light of the Arrested Development thread, I nominate The Final Countdown. It’s a cheesetastic song in its own right, but I’ll never be able to not associate it with Gob and magic tricks, er illusions gone wrong. ---
**Author:** ![BaneSidhe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c5a1d2/32.png) [@BaneSidhe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaneSidhe)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/49 "2010-06-09T05:10:16Z")
[quote=“hellpaso, post:44, topic:542200”] > [@Lucky\_13](#): > > I can’t listen to “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan without thinking of those SPCA public-service announcements with the poor little dogs in the shelters. ☹ > > QUOTE] > Yessssss!☹ Same here ☹ ---
**Author:** ![flano1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f14d63/32.png) [@flano1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flano1)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/50 "2010-06-09T07:00:30Z")
and Cartman singing " In the ghetto." ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/51 "2010-06-09T07:59:22Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > _Helter Skelter_ and _Piggies_ from the album THE BEATLES set the bar pretty high for “ruined through association”. Oddly enough most songs I eventually manage to divorce from their unpleasant associations, or maybe just the ones that I like, including these. _Helter Skelter_ is a raving rocker that was misinterpreted by a crazy killer who thought the Beatles were speaking to him through it, personally. Same with _Piggies_, in which I like the harpsichord bits particularly. Perhaps because I never did particularly like _Pachelbel’s Canon_ I’ve never been able to dissociate it from the movie _Testament_, where it is played while the last three surviving characters in the town, after a nuclear war, celebrate somebody’s last birthday with a candle on a graham cracker. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/52 "2010-06-09T17:28:08Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > Shouldn’t _that_ commercial have used “Like a Rock”? Post of the day! ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200/53 "2010-06-09T19:56:28Z")
Surfin’ bird - The Trashmen. If you don’t know why, I can’t encourage you to find out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-forever-ruined-through-association/542200.md?page=2)