It was in a department store (during Christmas, of course) and there was no choir that I could tell, just instrumentals filling in the parts. It did sound very odd. Maybe the environs filtered out the choir.
(NPR interstitial music)
I was surprised once hearing an orchestral version of Siouxsie and the Banshee’s “Hong Kong Garden” on NPR. It actually was a bit out of place, IIRC following a story about Taiwan rather than Hong Kong or China, and the song itself is actually about racism in the UK. Most of the interstitial music I hear on there is an instrumental portion of a normal song rather than a new rendition, so I looked it up, and it turned out to be taken from a remix of the song as opposed to an easy-listening recording.
Weirdest Muzak I ever heard is one I think I’ve posted on here before, an easy-listening version of a song that was already pretty easy-listening: Candy Dulfer’s “Lily Was Here” (link to original version’s video). Even-easier-listening, I suppose. It sounded as though Dave Stewart’s acoustic guitar was replaced with a synth, Candy Dulfer’s alto sax had been replaced with a flute, and the already slow Casio beat scaled back and quieted. Heard it at a Turkish restaurant that was otherwise playing vaguely Asian music.
I was in a store with a friend when we realized that the Muzak was playing Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy. Very, very disturbing.
For those who don’t know the song, the lyrics include such light and carefree passages as:
He took little Susie to the Junior Prom
Excitable boy, they all said
and he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he’s just an excitable boy
I thought of Hobby Lobby when I read the OP. As far as I know all of their Muzak is versions of Christian hymns/praise songs.
I remember last time being in there realizing that I was humming “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”