Dr. Strangelove ends with “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn. You might be thinking of the movie Good Morning, Vietnam instead.
Same here! And a lot of people don’t even remember it being in the movie!
“What a Wonderful World” was also used in advertisements for the movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy over an image of Earth being obliterated, but not in the movie itself. I believe it was used in the final episode of the BBC TV series, but memory’s a little hazy.
(By the way, that song never struck me as simply happy. The lyrics, maybe, but the music and vocals always made me think of someone who has been beaten up by life making a conscious effort to find joy in everyday things. But I’m off on a tangent now.)
Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman post Julia Roberts/Richard Gere.
Rolling Stones Jumping Jack Flash will always cause me to think of Whoopie Goldberg in penguin slippers dancing around and shouting “speak English, Mick!”
Digital Underground’s Humpty Dance was in Step Up 2. It was a better segment in the movie than watching the music video.
Harry Nilsson singing Fred Neil’s "Everybody’s Talkin’ " pretty much takes me right back to “Midnight Cowboy”.
That song means that Ratso is dead. Dead dead dead !! 
E.T.A.: Annie X-mas wins the thread for Play Misty For Me !!! Goooood one.
Cartooniverse
An eallier post mentions music they associate with SNL. As for me, I can’t hear Haddaway’s “What is Love?” on the radio without thinking of the Butabi brothers going clubbing. Similarly, when I hear Everything but the Girl’s song “Missing” I have to fight the urge to shout “Mango!!!”
or in the Doors.
Yep, as Arthur and Ford are stranded on prehistoric earth, musing on the senselessness of it all.
It’s also used at the very end of 12 Monkeys. In part because of those two associations, it’s a song I can’t listen to dry-eyed.
Against All Odds ruined Phil Collins’ (Against all Odds) Take a Look at me Now
Vision Quest forever represents Red Rider’s Lunatic Fringe and Madonna’s Crazy For You
and I see the party scene in Platoon when I hear Smokey Robinson’s Tears of a Clown
I’m sorry but the correct response is, “What is We’ll Meet Again as performed by Vera Lynn?” That will cost you $200 but you still have control of the board.
From the TV show Murphy Brown when she sings (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman to her new born baby.
Bob Seger’s Roll Me Away will always be associated with the movei Mask
Heard it through the Grapevine from the beginning of The Big Chill
Everybody’s Talkin’ will always be associated with Midnight Cowboy
In the Air Tonight makes me think of Tom Cruise and Rebecca DeMornay riding the “el’ in Risky Business
You Can Leave Your Hat On always makes me think of Kim Bassinger dancing in9 ½ Weeks. NSFW
It’s funny, I always associate Petty’s “American Girl” with the opening of “Fast Times”.
No one’s mentioned Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” after the bus scene in “Almost Famous” yet ? I loved the song before the movie, and now that scene always comes to mind when I hear the song.
Actually “Almost Famous” has a number of song-remembering scenes - Cat Stevens’ 'Listen to the Wind" (Penny Lane spinning about the concert floor after a show).
“The End” by the Doors = Apocalypse Now in my mind.
How could I have forgotten this one? I was sobbing through the entire song. At the end of Coming Home, the song “Time” plays as the most painful and brilliant sequence is cross-cut.
Jon Voigt talks to a group of high school students about the war. Meanwhile, Bruce Dern removes every stitch of clothing including, at the end, his wedding band, and swims into the ocean to commit suicide.
Brutal. Brilliant. That song? Forever linked to that scene.
Killing Me Softly was used in About a Boy in full-wince mode. A pity, too…I used to like that song.
Halloween II forever spookified Mr. Sandman.
It seems to be a phenomenon I’m immune to. I’ve been trying to think of an example that’s applicable to me; meanwhile, reading everyone else’s and going “nope…nope… not me…nope”
The only exceptions I can come up with are initial associations, i.e., the original context in which I heard the music. I can’t hear the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony without thinking “it’s the news”, but that’s because that what that music was to me as a child long before I discovered that it was Beethoven. That’s not really in the “never the same again” category though.
Makes me bawl , every damn time. Making me tear up just thinking about it.
“Your eyes” was another one I was going to mention.
“Oh Yeah” from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
“I’m all right” Caddy Shack.i
The whistling song on “The Bridge Over River Kwai.” Or maybe “The Big Red One,” can’t remember.
It’s funny how you can see the scene in your mind’s eye, while the song is played.
118 posts and noone has mentioned Frank Sinatra singing “Love And Marriage” for nine years (!) at the beginning of each episode of Married With Children. I can’t hear the song without thinking of Al Bundy. (The DVD version uses a different song.)
Speaking of Frank Sinatra, Neon Genesis Evangelion has forever warped “Fly Me To The Moon” for me by using something like 26 different covers of that song in the closing credits for the show.