Today, while picking up my prescription at Walgreen’s I was stunned to hear Elvis Costello’s “I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea” on the store’s music feed. A thirty year old song that never even came close to a hit in the U.S. Then when I went to a local convenience store I heard this Cracker song. What unusual songs have you heard on a store’s instore music feed?
A friend on mine once swore he heard a Muzak version of Aqualung.
I heard “Nights in White Satin”-- not so unusual; what was unusual was that they played the whole side of Days of Future Passed. The must have had a real DJ, and not subscribed to a muzak service, or a cable (adless) radio station.
I heard a Gang of Four song at Biggby’s coffee shop recently. It was so unexpected it took me a minute to realize how weird that was.
mmm
When I was in DSW Shoe Warehouse yesterday I would bet $1000 I was the only one in there who caught the irony in them having the song “Eleven Days” sung by Cyndi Lauper playing overhead.
The song is from the Fatboy Slim / David Byrne colaboration album and musical Here Lies Love which tells the life story of Imelda Marcos. The song is being sung from Imelda’s perspective.
I thought it was funny hearing the song in a massive shoe store when she was famous for owning thousands of pairs of shoes.
Muzak version of Green Day. I forget which song, but a more rocking one, not “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).”
On more than one occasion I’ve heard “Should I Stay or Should I Go” while shopping at the local Kroger. This was I believe The Clash’s biggest hit and I’ve never been surprised to hear it on rock radio, but it always strikes me as a little edgy for a major supermarket chain.
While living in Japan circa 2004 I was always hearing these terrible electronic versions of Western pop hits while shopping. They all sounded basically like someone had hit the demo button on an early '80s Casio keyboard, and it sometimes took a while to recognize what the song was even supposed to be. I noticed “Papa Don’t Preach” playing at a 100 yen store (Japanese dollar store) and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” in a department store, although the weirdest one was probably “Harper Valley PTA” while browsing the sushi case in a grocery store.
“Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Zaxby’s is probably at the top of my list.
I heard Neil Young’s “Thrasher” at Piggly Wiggly. I figured if you were going to hear Neil in a grocery store it would probably be “Heart of Gold.”
I don’t recall which ones they were but I’ve heard a few Steely Dan tunes all done up in Muzak over the last several years. Didn’t seem right then, doesn’t seem right now.
This was not a restaurant but once while dining in a Marie Callender’s, I noticed they were piping in Wilco over the music system.
Another time, I was in Rite-Aid during the holiday season when they played Jethro Tull’s “A Christmas Song” among their usual Yuletide fare. In fact, I’ve often heard the Rite-Aid music system toss in a wild card among the expected assortment of Adult Contemporary hits and overplayed Oldies. For example, they might play a song from Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald that only hardcore jazz listeners would be familiar with.
Aeons ago, when I was a teenager, my mom and I were at Shoney’s for our weekly after-work hot fudge cake and cuppa when we noticed the Muzak playing some unholy rendition of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. That was 30 years ago, and I’m still pretty nauseated. And around 2008, I was at the front desk of the hotel where I worked when I sorta recognized a song. It was a lounge-lizard-y remake of Wanna Be Sedated. (I ran back to check the satellite radio feed, to find out the artist’s name, so that I could avoid them like the plague for the rest of my life. The Recliners, if you are morbidly curious.)
On a brighter note, the 3 groceries I frequent actually have decent enough music feeds. The largest one plays mostly alt-rock, the one that’s part of a reasonably large chain has its own proprietary feed that is heavy on eighties pop/rock, but my favorite is the smallest one. They play mostly old school pop/funk/disco. I was mildly shocked one recent afternoon when Brick House started playing, and more than mildly amused when the impromptu dance party broke out on aisle 4!
Gustav Holst’s The Planets, though I suspect that particular store was tuned in to a local PBS station.
One of our grocery stores plays Michael Jackson and various funky hits of the 80’s - I haven’t seen any dancing in the aisles, though I resist best I can! In an arts and crafts store they played ‘Rock Steady’ by the Whispers, and I did dance a little to that way back hidden in the dollhouse section.
I was at work doing paperwork on a Sunday and had forgotten to lock the door. I had the stereo blasting Smokie’s Who The Fuck Is Alice when someone walked in.
The Undertones with Teenage Kicks in a Goodwill.
David Gray’s Babylon at a Boston Market.
KT Tunstall’s Black Horse and The Cherry Tree at a dentist’s office.
Nelly Furtado’s I’m Like A Bird at a United Way thrift store.
I was in Smith’s (A Kroger brand store out west) just last week and strangely noticed they were playing Spirit In The Sky, the real one, not any Muzak. Then something else came on right after, just as out of place, but I don’t remember what it was. I just remember thinking, “Wow. Actual decent music!”
It seemed like it was kinda loud, too. Rockin’ out at Smith’s.
edit: The irony here is that the original Smith’s was founded by Mormons, before being swallowed up by Kroger.
When I worked at the grocery store, the overnight crew would sometimes switch the satellite music feed over to something unconventional, and got talked to more than once because they were switch it to rap or metal and forget that customers sometimes came in. :o
One morning, I opened up the pharmacy at 7:55am to the tune of King Crimson’s “In the Court Of The Crimson King”. I’ve never taken acid, but it almost made me want to. We later heard the 17-minute version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. 
Another time, someone changed it to country gospel AND accidentally bumped the volume to about 11. Anne Murray’s “In The Garden” does not sound very good at full blast, trust me on that.
Before that, I worked at a clinic that had Muzak versions of hit songs, and my favorite was Jethro Tull’s “Living In The Past” with the melody played on a trombone. Never heard it since, and haven’t been able to find that version online either. It was great!
Once heard a Muzak version of “Heart of Glass”, in an elevator, of course.
When I was in college, I worked as a hotel banquet server, and as we were setting up, I joked to a co-worker, “Could you imagine putting ‘Muzak performer’ down as your occupation on your tax return?” She replied that the people who do that are usually moonlighting symphony orchestra performers, and if they are in the union, they can make a LOT of money doing that; this was in the early 1990s, and she said that union musicians made about $50 an hour. :eek:
She was about 30 years old, pursuing a second bachelor’s degree, and I found out later that her first degree was in music and she was a professional musician herself. 
She has a website for her private-lessons business, and she also performs with a band, the local symphony, and does private parties as well.