If you think that’s bizarre, check out the link between Muzak and the birth of grunge.
I was amazed several years ago to hear “Sylvia” by '70s prog-rockers Focus playing over the sound system at the local Walgreens.
More recently, I was at a nearby resale store one weekend afternoon, and I heard, in succession, Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”, Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up”, and “Freewill” by Rush. 
I would have stuck around longer but I needed to be somewhere else.
We go to Ruby Tuesday’s once or twice a year, and I always find myself humming the Stones’ song when we do. Three or four months ago we were there, and while waiting for our meal it actually played overhead.
Wal-Mart played a slow, lovesong-paced version of Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out”. I also once caught a similar version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”. Both were gross!
Some Ralphs grocery stores have Joy Division and the Replacements on the loop. New Order too.
My little old Bluefield, VA/WV mall has actually had these songs (THE REAL ONES(!!), NOT Muzak) piped in once during different visits: “Sheila Take A Bow” by The Smiths, “Buffalo Soldier” by Bob Marley and The Wailers, “Ghost Town” by The Specials (during Halloween), and, saving the best/most awesome one for last, “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” by Genesis.
That would make grocery shopping more enjoyable.
Since stores never play any songs I’ve ever heard of, I make considerable effort not to
hear the “music.”
I was waiting for my wife in a shopping mall vestibule and noticed that the speakers were playing Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High? by Arctic Monkeys which seemed like an odd choice.
Try the same scenario, only it’s The Beatles “Revolution”.
It is to cry.
We heard “One Toke Over The Line” and KISS’ “Heaven’s On Fire” on that restaurant’s Muzak too.
:eek:
How about OTOTL on the “Lawrence Welk Show”?
:smack:I just now got back from Kroger, where I heard TMBG’s version of “Istanbul (not Constantinople).” Yeah, not that obscure, but a little on the quirky side.
Back when that song was in moderate rotation on MTV, my mother heard it and remembered the original, from 1954.
Here’s another Overhead Music Tale from the grocery store.
Yet another morning, an elderly customer was picking up her meds and, as she looked upwards, asked me, “What kind of music IS this, anyway?” I replied, “Oh, this song was popular around the time I graduated from high school, and I’ve seen this band in concert 4 times.”
The song was “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, which was bubbling under (but never quite made) the Top 40 when I graduated in 1981. 
A few years ago I was in my local Walgreens and the muzak was the original Telstar! The clerk (a much younger woman) said that earlier Purple People Eater had played.
Many years ago I was sitting at a Dunkin’ Donuts, getting ready to go in to my crap temp job. (Hey, any job is better than no job–and “temp” means it won’t go on forever.)
Soundtrack: A Muzak rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat.”
I don’t pay much attention to music in stores, unless it’s something I know and really like. I was in a supermarket not long ago when I heard Bruce Springsteen’s Working on a Dream, by the Boss himself, not a Muzak version. Many years ago while shopping, I remember a Muzak version of Supertramp’s Breakfast in America.
Standing in line at the pharmacy in Bi-Lo. I heard the Psychedelic Furs, “The Ghost in You” playing.
Oddly enough, I was thinking of starting a thread like this. Yesterday morning, on my way home from work, I stopped in a truck stop by my employer to fill up the gas tank. I went in to grab a Mountain Dew and to pay for the gas when I heard a rather obscure song by one of my favorite bands. It’s no secret on these boards that I’m a Counting Crows fan, but I didn’t know that “Einstein on the Beach (for an Eggman)” was known to anyone except me and three other people. I’m sure that not even half of the band knew the song.
Your comment reminds me of something. When my little brother was a teenager, my mother was driving him somewhere, and he switched the radio to the local rock station. The opening notes of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Perry Mason” came through the speakers. When the first notes started, my mother recognized the tune as the theme song to the show. "She remarked “that’s Perry Mason.”
My little brother, who wasn’t aware of the theme song, thought for a few seconds that my mom was cooler than he’d assumed.