I thought of this while listening to Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, which always evokes visions of the dance sequence at Romy And Michelle’s High School Reunion
It got me to thinking about what other songs you came to know long before some producer paid royalties to be able to use them in film. A classic example of this is “Do Wah Diddy” and Stripes. Can anyone now here that song *without * thinking of Bill Murray and Harold Ramos on the first day of basic training?
What are your examples?
American Girl (Tom Petty)- Silence of the Lambs
Baba O’Reily (The Who)- Summer of Sam
Forever Young (Alphaville) and Canned Heat (Jamiroquai)- Napoleon Dynamite
“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” - Breakfast Club
The music used in “The Pitch (Spectacular Spectacular)” in Moulin Rouge! - although the tune itself is much older, of course. Actually, just about any of the songs or song snippets used in Moulin Rouge! make me think of the movie instantly, including “Like a Virgin”, “Roxanne” and “Your Song”.
Don’t you forget about me (Simple minds) - Breakfast club
According to one account, the band “rearranged and recorded ‘Don’t You (Forget about Me)’ in three hours in a north London studio and promptly forgot about it.”
Whenever I hear Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door” I think about Grosse Point Blank.
Lots from just Goodfellas. Namely:
Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love” - the slow focus in on Deniro when he decides he’s going to kill Maury
Nilsson’s “Jump Into The Fire” - the beginning of Henry’s coke-fueled day
The slow ending to Derek and the Dominos “Layla” - when they start showing all the bodies of the guys from the heist
“Speedo” by The Cadillacs - the early good times during Paulie’s BBQ
“Hands Across The Ocean” (Don’t know who sings it) - when they’re pummeling Billy Batts
for me, that song is the closing credits of Look Who’s Talking
“Unchained Melody” is forever inseparable from the movie Ghost.
Huey Lewis and Back to the Future will always co-exist as one.
Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” was also used in the school dance scene in Napoleon Dynamite, so I will always think of this movie when I hear the song. On the other hand, the only time I will likely hear this song voluntarily will be when I am watching the movie.
John Cusack’s boom-box blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” in Say Anything.
Stealers Wheels “Stuck in the Middle With You” = Reservoir Dogs from now until forever.
“Old Time Rock and Roll”
seconding “Unchained Melody” for Ghost,
stupid “Take My Breath Away” for Dirty Dancing (there’s another one too from that movie that I’m forgetting),
almost every song from Pulp Fiction,
some Cyndi Lauper song that I want to call “Good Love” even if that’s not the name from The Goonies,
and Damien Rice’s “The Blower’s Daughter” from Closer.
so many, but that’s all I can think of now.
ugh! I hate when I remember something right after I post:
“The End” (by the Doors) on Apocalypse Now.
- in the staffer’s hang out, when Johnny first dances with Bay?
stoopit coding hamsters
that was supposed to be bolded not quoted: **I’m A Love Man **
“Take My Breath Away” isn’t in Dirty Dancing, I don’t think. Perhaps you’re thinking of “Hungry Eyes” or “She’s Like the Wind”? Or “The Time of My Life”?
“Twist and Shout,” Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Heck, yeah!
“Play it, Sam. Play “As Time Goes By””.
I’ve always liked Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and it was my favorite song when I was growing up in the late 70s.
Now it seems anyone I know under the age of 30 refers to it as “That song from Wayne’s World”.