Just a couple of minutes ago, I was listening to an interview being done at Foxboro Stadium for a football game. I noticed an unusual song playing in the background, and thought “could that really be…”
Television’s “Marquee Room”! Yes it was. What on earth was a ten minute jammy midtempo song that 99% of the stadium had never heard of being played at a football game? Are there any songs played at public venues that have really surprised you?
As a lifelong diehard fan of S.F. Bay Area Thrash Metal from its nascent beginnings, I was utterly gobsmacked when Death Angel’s “The Ultra-Violence” appeared in a Carl’s Jr. commercial. Way to go, guys!
The local McDonald’s used to play Bing Crosby and Dean Martin and all sorts of forties and thirties music. I used to love looking around at the young gangbangers sitting there with a wonderful look on their faces: whatthefugisthat? I guess that manager quit or got fired because now it’s back to the semi-elevator music all the other fast food places play. Too bad. I still remember sitting there one day and giggling to myself: OMG, that’s Bing Crosby!
That may have been intentional. I remember reading a story about a Circle K that had issues with lingering teenagers. So they started playing Perry Como and Barry Manilow to keep people who weren’t buying stuff from hanging out.
Ca. 1990, I dated a man who owned a record store, and he would play classical music towards closing time, or if he thought he might have troublemaking customers. It never failed to amaze him how much some of those kids knew about it. 
Back when I worked at the grocery store, the overnight crew would turn the overhead music to their favorite channels (they were told not to listen to rap; anything else was fair game) and one morning, they hadn’t changed it back from the 1970s prog channel. I opened the pharmacy at 7:55 AM to King Crimson’s “In The Court of the Crimson King”, and while I have never taken acid, nor had any desire to, it almost made me want to. 
We later heard the 17-minute version of “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida”, and the other pharmacist, who by now is probably retired, started to tell me the story behind and I replied that I already knew it.
No, it wasn’t. 
“Marquee Moon”, OTOH, was an odd choice for the venue.
Last Valentine’s Day, a friend and I went out to a restaurant for brunch. (Jaker’s, a mid-level “nice” steakhouse chain between the fast-casual joints and the actual nice restaurants in Missoula.) Anyway, they were having a nice little theme day, understated but apparent, complete with themed music.
Sadly, the effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact they apparently believed “Talk About the Passion” by R.E.M. is a love song. It’s… not. It’s really, really not:
Combien means “How much?”, so it’s asking “How much reaction?” and “How much time?”, as in, “How much are we going to react to hunger?” and “How long are we going to allow it to go on?” The lyrics are somewhat oblique, but for R.E.M. this is about as straightforwards as it gets.
The fact a nice restaurant was playing a song about starvation is weird enough, but that they were playing it under the apparent impression it’s a love song makes it less a veiled commentary and more a subtle joke.
Oh, I have to respond to this one, too, if only to say I lost my ability to be surprised at the songs ad executives pick for commercials when Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines used a Burroughs-inspired song about heroin addiction to advertise their cruises.
You know the song. Of course you’ve had it in the ear before. “Lust For Life”, by Iggy Pop.
(Looking at Wikipedia, a Rugrats movie used a parody of the song. The lyrics were cleaned up, of course; they changed them to refer to the dog.)
– when a teenage-girl clothing label used “Welcome to the house of fun” for their commercial. A fun boppy song about trying to buy condoms. ewww.
It may have been more the style of the music than what the song it’s about, and the restaurant most likely got it from Sirius or some similar service.