Obscure Singles Heard at CVS

I like Afterburner but yeah outside of "why am I hearing Sleeping Bag at CVS?" insanity I don't know why anything from it would make regular rotation on rock radio now

― da croupier, Thursday, October 11, 2012 2:32 PM

I tweeted this a few days ago. Recently:

Duran Duran - Do You Believe in Shame
Michael Penn - This and That

Semisonic: All About Chemistry

Grocery store, not CVS, but "Echo Beach" by Martha and the Muffins.

Not a CVS but I recently heard "I Am The Slime" by Zappa when I was getting my hair cut

once heard the entirety of they might be giants' flood on the walmart radio station.

jesus buddy were you waiting for an oil change or something?

ie it wasn't some worker blasting flood thru the store pa, it was the corporate radio station piped into walmarts coast to coast for some reason doing a 'showcase' on flood.

haha i think (dear god i hope) it started soon after i arrived and i may have indeed lingered to take it in, hear 'twisting' for the first time in however many years, take half an hour to decide whether or not i want poptarts, etc. something very fucked about hearing this blasting at walmart though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zNoxjUUyec

hahaha that's better than what I was guessing, which was "Your Racist Friend"

I heard Cracker's cover of "Shake Some Action" in CVS just two nights ago.

Others:

Boz Scaggs - Miss Sun
a-ha - The Sun Always Shines on TV
Tyler Collins - Girls Night Out
Toni Childs - Don't Walk Away

Huh I heard echo beach at Barnes & noble last week.

weirdest one i remember was "change your mind" by neil young while i was standing in line to get painkillers a few years ago. must've been a radio edit. felt appropriate.

Michael Penn - This and That
also, this song is so classic

Heard "Let's Hang On" which was a minor Top 40 for Barry Manilow at a Rite Aid once.

Sunrise by Duran Duran at Papa Ginos a month or so ago.
Why would THAT happen?

lite rock cover of Catch the Sun by Doves @ my bank

"Heaven's on Fire" by KISS was playing on at least two separate occasions at the CVS by my college

not an obscure single really but jarring in the soft-rock context, heard "More Bounce to the Ounce" at the local grocery store a few months ago

REM - "All The Way To Reno"

ie it wasn't some worker blasting flood thru the store pa, it was the corporate radio station piped into walmarts coast to coast for some reason doing a 'showcase' on flood.

― balls, Thursday, October 11, 2012 5:25 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is exceptionally weird and now I want to listen to that album which I haven't done in years.

It's not obscure but I was euphoric when I heard Amy Grant's "I Will Remember You" yesterday.

was picking up prescription for antidepressant at walgreens and they were playing "i wanna be sedated." no lie.

heard velvet underground - oh! sweet nuthin' at walgreens last week

Sugar Ray's "Chasin You Around" at Met Foods. The second single off In Pursuit Of Leisure, the album after the last one anyone cared about

not obscure but heard like a 10-minute Tool deep cut in a 24 hour kroger once. it was weird because there was usually just soft rock & r&b playing there

a couple visits to shop rite ago i heard the 12-inch edit of "she's always in my hair"

I'm just gonna use this thread for obscure songs heard in any retail setting:

Roxy Music - 2HB in Noodles and Company yesterday.

The other week in Morrisons they were playing 'If I Could Talk I'd Tell You' by the Lemonheads (a #39 smash in 1996).

Heard the Kinks' "Juke Box Music" in a grocery store a couple of years ago. Barely a hit in the US in 1977, never played on "classic rock" radio.

lol i heard donna lewis's flop second single "without love" in a cvs once

Heard "For What It's Worth" by The Cardigans in the grocery store the other day.

not that obscure really but heard dennis deyoung's "desert moon" followed by madonna's "this used to be my playground" on KRGR kroger radio last night, the algorithm was feeling some super intense nostalgia apparently

Thought this was a revival of this thread: albert hammond, "it never rains in southern california"

Not obscure, but I really enjoyed hearing Scritti Politti at CVS yesterday.

I heard the song 'On the Beach' by Neil Young at the grocery store once.

Heard "Couple Days Off" by Huey Lewis & The News last night at Whataburger.

Heard "Emerge" Fischerspooner at a Florida water-park

https://soundcloud.com/hennessyyoungman/cvsbangers

haha thank you, a classic

Jack In The Box is good for these. Today it was "Wild Wild Life" by Talking Heads, and last time a couple weeks ago I heard "Canary In A Coalmine" by The Police.

It's not obscure but I was euphoric when I heard Amy Grant's "I Will Remember You" yesterday.

alfred i'd start straight up bawling

I heard that really sterile, generic, terrible ballad by "Sergio Mendes" from the 80s...."Never Gonna Let You Go"...in a Zaxby's.

whenever i'm in cvs i hear "shattered dreams"

I heard Jack Wagner's "All I Need" and Richard Marx's "Hazard" once in an Albertsons during a 4 hour shift. I remain convinced that they had not changed their Muzak since my childhood.

and whenever I hit the "from this empty heart" falsetto several mothers in the cold medicine section scowl

hahaha. I can't help not singing along to that tune either. that or "All I Need is a Miracle".

haha otm

Shopping for pencils and invisible tape at CVS this morning I heard "Soul Drifter" by Lindsey Buckingham!

^^^^ I've heard it at CVS too

Manu Dibango - "Soul Makossa," in H.E.B. yesterday (though for some reason, in that store, the only place you can usually hear the music without straining your ears is in the restroom)

My local Goodwill still sells ‘em, but I haven’t bothered to sift through them in years. It’s all junk.

Wow -- Arcadia's "Goodbye is Forever" at Starbucks.

Ollie's:

Squeeze: "Hourglass"
Billy Joel: "I Go To Extremes"

Oldies Dairy Queen:

Shangri La's: "Out In The Streets"
Marvelettes: "I'll Keep On Holding On"
Hank Ballard: "The Switcheroo"
Sandie Shaw: "Girl, Don't Come"
Chiffons: "I Have A Boyfriend"
Tony Harris: "Chicken, Baby, Chicken"
Supremes: "When The Lovelight..."
Tommy Roe: "Everybody"
Carl Mann: "Mona Lisa"

ELO: "Rock'n'Roll Is King" at Whataburger (Extra-weird because almost everything else was 21st Century chartbusters)

Styx's "Come Sail Away" in the coffee shop earlier, which I like in a very narrow context: every 20 seconds I'd close my eyes, hoping that when I opened them I'd be back at my high school prom (which I didn't actually attend, but no need to get overly technical).

Freebirds:

Van Halen: "Cabo Wabo"
Robbie Williams: "Candy (More Candy)"*

*I'm in America where he had like three minor hits 20+ years ago.

Michael Penn: "This and That" at Whataburger

We circle back to the beginning.

We keep on talking, talking about "This and That."

"French Navy" by Camera Obscura at Walgreens

Kinda jealous of this tbh, my CVS is never playing music (maybe they should, might make the pharmacists less cranky) and most grocery stores I visit either don’t play anything either, or is so low as to be nearly inaudible.

Can’t believe I’m missing more places having background music like this.

Wilco’s “One By One” in a highway gas station. (This song finished 67th in our ILM Wilco poll.)

Which Wich:

The Cure: "Close To You"
Cardigans: "My Favorite Game"
INXS: "Beautiful Girl"

Santana & The Wreckers: "I'm Feeling You" at Whataburger

Coffee shop: "Kid Charlemagne." Played The Royal Scam endlessly in high school--I'd probably have to go back that far for the last time I heard it.

It does seem like that's the Steely Dan album that's least heard in the wild nowadays. Kind of surprised that "Kid Charlemagne" wasn't a Top 40 hit, it seemed big at one time.

Collective Soul: "Hollywood" at Cafe Express

Dread Zeppelin's cover of "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" today at Tijuana Flats.

INXS: "Taste It" at Skeeters

Is there a Welcome To Wherever You Are revival happening? This is the second deep track I've heard from it on a Muzak in like three weeks.

There were tons of CD copies of it and Full Moon Dirty Hearts in late '90s Walmart cutout bins.

^^Building on this, I heard "Not Enough Time" today at Which Wich.

Also heard "Cool Kids" by Echosmith, which is a good 5 or so years older than I thought it was.

Freebirds:

Steely Dan: "Haitian Divorce"
John Fogerty: "Hot Rod Heart"

Pepperoni's

Amy Grant: "Takes A Little Time"
Rod Stewart: "If We Fall In Love Tonight"

The Fall - Free Range

Freebirds:

Scorpions: "Can't Live Without You"
OMD: "Enola Gay"

IHOP

Beatles: "Now & Then"
REM: "At My Most Beautiful"
Van Morrison: "Have I Told You Lately?"

Target

Heatwave: "Ain't No Half Steppin'"

grocery store
"It's a Mistake" Men at Work

Trader Joe's

Thin Lizzy - "Jailbreak", which wasn't even a single in the US so Wikipedia tells me

It was on the b-side of "The Boys Are Back in Town"

Stateside these days I'd say everything Lizzy that's not "Boys..." is a deep cut. "Jailbreak" is a weird one to hear in a supermarket, although maybe less so in a Trader Joe's.

"Jailbreak" was also a pretty big turntable hit over here.

AOR radio played it all the time back in the '70s/'80s. If you were listening on "Two-for-Tuesday" you were gonna hear "The Boys Are Back in Town" and "Jailbreak" at some point without question.

Comedians made jokes about that song. "Tonight there's gonna be a Jailbreak... somewhere in this town"? Gee, I wonder where that might be!

love "It's a Mistake"

Not obscure at all but amused by the supermarket's segue this morning from Josuke Higashikata's Theme Song "I Want You" to Carly Simon's "Anticipation" to Culture Club...only to be ruined by Deep Blue Something.

(I still mumbled along to the chorus).

Supermarket
“Black Diamond Bay”

Five Guys

311:"Homebrew"
Paramore:"Caught In The Middle"
Spoon: "Hot Thoughts"

Fourth of July
With burgers and fries

Twenty-nine. Keep that number in mind.

Neither obscure nor CVS, but "I Love a Rainy Night" at CVS.

In this song, Eddie Rabbit sings the phrase "I love a Rainy Night" three times in each verse and four times in each chorus. And eleven times in the fadeout.

There are 339 words in the song, and 158 of them are repetitions of the song's title.

(By the way, the two verses are identical. The laziness is impressive.)

Do you know what the song is about? It's about loving rainy nights. There's no story or metaphor beyond that.

One of the only other details in the lyrics is "in the moonlight shadows." Hey. Eddie. Do you know what there ISN'T, on a rainy night? Motherflippin shadows.

And yet it is still a catchy-ass song. I can't, as the kids say, even.

I know "Sylvia's Mother" isn't really obscure, but it's increasingly just gone. But there it was at CVS, sounding beautiful as ever.

Great Clips:

Taylor Swift: "Last Kiss"

Whataburger

Bangles: "Walking Down Your Street"

^^ a jam

James Coney Island

Elliott Smith: "A Fond Farewell"

Jason's Deli:

Elliott Smith: "Independence Day"
Chicago: "Happy Man"

Half-Price Books:

Bryan Ferry: "Let's Stick Together "
Emmitt Rhodes: "Promises I've Made"
Morrissey: "Every Day Is Like Sunday"

our local taqueria mini-chain:

"Downtown Train" - the Tom Waits original

(They played Maggie May a few songs later for those who'd been denied their Rod Stewart fix.)

"Down by the River" at the coffee shop--perfect apocalyptic-snow music.

Slim Chickens

Sparkletones: "Black Slacks"
Carla Thomas: "Baby I Like What You're Doing To Me"
Animals: "Dimples"
Phish: "Heavy Things"
Cream: "I'm So Glad"

"Boot Scootin' Boogie," breakfast in Sebringville, Ontario in a small diner. God, I used to hate that song. Chuck Eddy couldn't do it, but Philip Jennings on The Americans brought me around a little--and the setting couldn't be more ideal.