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)

Oh, duh! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsljwYOaVIk

Crap, not that, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVbpA-BuSdU

Los Lobos: "We Belong Together" at Liberty Taco

Brenda Lee’s “Is It True?” was playing loudly in the elevator at a corporate convention-center hotel! I played air guitar along with Page’s solo as I swiftly descended, alone…

(coming back up later, I heard a track I had to Shazam; it was a 1980 jam by Gladys Knight and the Pips called “Add It Up.” Some absolute king or queen put this hotel’s playlist together…)

(Fate must be smiling upon me on this final morning of my work conference, bc I heard another favorite song – Wolf Parade’s “Shine a Light” – while eating breakfast at another hotel. That place was working a “2000s indie” playlist, so it fit in.)

Two at the coffee shop, low-medium volume: "Uncle John's Band" (perfect) and "Blitzkrieg Bop" (much less so).

Followed by "In God's Country," the one and only U2 song I unequivocally love.

Oldies Dairy Queen was nosier and playing the muzak at a lower volume than normal. Still could make out:

Buddy Holly: "Not Fade Away"
Cleveland Crochet: "Sugar Bee"

The latter was the first and one of the only Zydeco Rock hits, charting in 1960, a good 25 or so years before "My Toot-Toot."

That particular Dairy Queen is really doing some good cultural preservation work

Was packing up to leave the coffee shop, but "Surrender"...62-year-old taps fingers on keyboard, circumspectly bobs head and sways gently. He just seems a little weird.

Heard “Divine Hammer” at Five Guys today.

“Too Late to Turn Back Now" by Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose at my kid’s physical therapy office.

That soundtracked a great scene in Blackkklansman. Spike Lee is just about the only director who knows how to use pop music in movies.

Them's fighting words (not that Spike doesn't know how, he does, but the "just about the only" part)...Swear to god, I was on here an hour ago and almost posted the Blackkklansman clip with a security-camera footage joke (i.e., from the physical therapy office--a lot of moving parts for a joke). Incredible scene.

Ha, yes I recall, you have strong opinions about this, as do I! <3

The burger place w/the Traveling Wilburys Pandora station switched to All-Beatles. The lesser-known tracks I heard today:

"Here, There, And Everywhere"
"I Will"
"For No One"
"Now & Then" (too soon?)
"Octopus' Garden"

“Undercover Angel” by Alan O’Day

i don't think this officially counts because of the nature of modern-day streaming services vis-a-vis all the readily available genre channels a bidness can select but i heard talking heads' pulled up at a great clips and i couldn't wait to post it. but then they played the well and the lighthouse and love is a long road and something along the lines of the greatest and then island in the sun and then i felt none of that could count because this was intentionally a "channel for people who have internalized the concept of obscure singles heard at cvs."

i did hear barry manilow's daybreak at a speedway in between all the usual stuff and i thought whoever programmed that was going full kmartcore.

“channel for people who have internalized the concept of obscure singles heard at cvs”

^^ real talk imo

like— the 80s shit i hear now in retail streaming feels like “lol this is something you never heard irl in the 80s except for on the boombox in my fucking car”

Not obscure, but I feel I need to chronicle this horny '80s pairing from tonight's stop at HEB:

Animotion: "Obsession" --> Van Halen: "Panama"

"Reach down...into the produce section
Ease the cart back..."

MOD Pizza:

Rolling Stones: "Mother's Little Helper"
New Order: "Love Vigilantes"
White Stripes: "Apple Blossom"
Derrick Harriott: "Answer Me My Darling" (early Ska)
Madness: "Believe Me"

^ aside from WS 15 year old me on the decks there!

Men at Work’s “Be Good Johnny” for the first time in a few days, at an empty Burgerville. Song holds up!

*first time in a few decades

Bumper Crop at Oldies Dairy Queen

Coasters: "Down In Mexico"
Chubby Checker: "Loddy Lo"
Ikettes: "I'm Blue"
Impressions: "Talkin' About My Baby"
Dixie Belles: "(Down At) Papa Joe's"
Genies: "Who's That Knocking On My Door?"
Chiffons: "I Have A Boyfriend"

What a run!

Oldies Dairy Queen is better than most ‘60s DJs

Would in fact be a good DJ name

“I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms,” by the Modern Lovers, at REI Co-op.

I heard all of Mr. Roboto in Safeway.

Not too obscure, I guess, but it is a pretty weird, long song that had been mostly forgotten (for good reasons).

Outside Safeway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D692JJPPUe4

Fed Ex Store:

Chuck Wood: "Seven Days Too Long"
Elvis Costello: "Accidents Will Happen"
Al Wilson: "The Snake"

#onethread about the latter track

The song gained renewed attention during the campaign for the 2016 United States presidential election. Republican candidate Donald Trump read its lyrics at several campaign rallies to illustrate his position on illegal immigration, claiming that the decision to allow people claiming refugee status to enter the United States would "come back to bite us", as happened to the woman who took in the snake in the song. Oscar Brown's work has been described as "a celebration of black culture and a repudiation of racism". Two of Brown's seven children asked Trump to stop using their late father's song, telling the media: "He's perversely using 'The Snake' to demonize immigrants" and that Brown "never had anything against immigrants". Despite a cease and desist letter, Trump has continued reciting the lyrics at rallies including in June 2021, and in September and December 2023. At a rally in Ohio March 16, 2024, Trump again read "The Snake," calling it "a very accurate metaphor, and it's about our border, it's about the people we have coming in, and don't be surprised when bad things happen, because bad things will happen."

Rolling Stones: "Rock And A Hard Place" at Denny's

“Break It Down Again,” by Tears for Fears, at an Italian restaurant in Guatemala City.

CSNY's "Carry On" at the coffee shop--likely the first time I've ever heard that in a public setting--followed by Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman." I'm wondering if the shop is just a front for a cocaine operation.

Ariana Grande album cut “Daydreamin’,” at a Pollo Campero in Panajachel, Guatemala (…following up a tropical remix of Taylor Swift’s “Paper Rings”).

Slim Chickens (last week, note on phone):

Animals: "Dimples"
The Band: "Rag Mama Rag"
SRV: "I'm Cryin'"
Drive-by Truckers: "Surrender Under Protest"
Albert King: "Searching For A Woman"

UPS Store

The Smithereens: "A Girl Like You"
Melissa Etheridge: "Similar Features"

(last week, note on phone)

lol

Can’t remember which grocery store, maybe QFC: R Dean Taylor - “Indiana Wants Me”

Always liked that one, such great cheesy melodrama. Though it's now forever linked to this post:

Without the siren, you'd think that maybe Indiana wants to give him a basketball scholarship.

― Heidy- Ho, Sunday, April 10, 2005 12:54 AM bookmarkflaglink

17 - Ladytron, at Pröst brewery

No umlaut

Clemenza doesn't live here anymore: "All the Way from Memphis" playing at the coffee shop. (Sorry for the Bo Jackson/Bob Dole flourish.)

Followed by Foghat's "Slow Ride," which at least makes sense on a calendar, but in so many ways not.

Rolling Stones: "Mona" at Tacos A Go Go

Coffee shop: "California Man." I think it was Cheap Trick, but the volume's low and I'm not by a speaker, so possibly it was the Move--that would be even more impressible.

Uh, impressive.

If it's big guitars and rocking, it's Cheap Trick

If it's big honking horns and pounding pianos (all rocking), it's The Move.

It was low and on the other side of the room...I'm going to assume Cheap Trick, because even on the greatest satellite radio feed or whatever, the Move are close to entirely forgotten. (Plus, the next three songs were "Lola," "Sweet Child O' Mine," and "What I Like About You.")