It Ruined It For Me

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As a teenager I was fanatical about the Velvet Underground, and on one occasion I played a schoolfriend The Murder Mystery, a song I was overly impressed with at the time. But as soon as Moe Tucker's introductory drum rolls began my friend said "sounds like The Muppet Show Theme tune". And to this day if I ever hear that song all I can think of is the opening credits to the Muppet Show and the start of its theme tune which, I swear, does bear a striking resemblance to the drum riff which is repeated throughout the Murder Mystery.

So the thread is: what stupid associations have spoiled once cherished songs?

― scott, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1. played a belle and sebastian tape in friends car once circa 98. everyone else said, disparagingly "sounds like beautiful south". It didn't ruin it for me, because i wasn't hugely into them but, strangely, they all ended up massive fans.

2. played a schlammpeitziger cd at someones house, also circa 98. friend said 'sounds like computer game music'. i mean, ok, she had a point i guess. the thing was, it spoiled it for me, a little, at the time. now i think my response would be 'yeh, and????'

― gareth, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't listen to Motown Junk without thinking of my friend Josh who is a bit like a blonde Otis Wheeler grabbing a hugely expensive vase at his parents house and playing air guitar with it, only to get "caught in the moment" and smashing it to bits in a Townshend mode. Then his parents FREAKED OUT and totally railed on the bunch of us, who all blamed me because it was my CD and I nearly had to pay for it, but in the end I was just asked not to come over along with this other girl too, but listen, it didn't stop us. It's not OUR fault their son drank a six pack of Jolt every day and would eat frosting for lunch.

Mind you it didn't actually ruin the song for me, it's just that when it comes on now I totally imitate his actions. San smashing valuable things.

― Ally, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used that BS comparison when expressing my disappointment with the last B&S album, interestingly.

I don't find associations offputting in themselves. When Chris Moyles does his stupid parodies of, say, "Get Ur Freak On" (not that I ever hear his show except under duress), I see it as the inevitable byproduct of the song's success; given that the alternative (and, 10 years ago, the likely truth) would be that nobody outside a small metropolitan clique was aware of the song's existence, it's the least of two evils. Put it another way: I've never let exploitation or rampant pisstaking of a song put me off it in itself; it bores me but for fuck's sake it's part of pop music.

So I'm not sure whether I can really answer this thread. However, hearing Cornelius's "Count Five Or Six" on _Football Focus_ reminded me just how bloody ordinary it is, and how Momus is wrong to make him out to be *above all that*.

― Robin Carmody, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A review of the TIndersticks in (I think) the MM once compared the lead vocalist to Vic Reeves doing his 'Pub Singer' impersonation. The scales immediately fell from eyes etc. and I've never been able to listen to them again w/out laughing.

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A friend once remarked that "This Corrosion" by the Sisters of Mercy sounds remarkably simillar to "Are We Ourselves" by the Fixx. I'll be damned....he was right. Couldn't listen to it the same way again, alas.

― alex in nyc, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Damn, I need to drink more Jolt.

The Muppet Show had great music, way better than "The Murder Mystery".

I start hating the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack every time I remember it's not Rachel Leigh Cook singing but the girl from Letters to Cleo.

― Otis Wheeler, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dude, that's why you don't THINK about things like that. Otherwise you get annoyed. Duh.

― Ally, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to think Radiohead's OK Computer was one of the best albums for ages for a good while until i heard some taste-maker on the radio saying that he thought the bends was better and that OK Computer was "Pomp-Rock". My first instinct was to shout "BOLLOCKS" and burn my radio but since then, I haven't been able to listen to it without thinking about Queen or something. This is annoying cos it shows how susceptible i am to critics and tastemakers even though i hate myself for it.

― dog latin, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I often find ANY music sounds better if you imagine the Muppets are playing it. This has already been demonstrated by 'Once In A Lifetime' but it really does work for anything. Try it!

― John Davey, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'My Heart' by Neil Young (from Sleeps With Angels) sounds so much like the kind of songs Kermit used to sing it's hard to believe it's not intentional.

― scott, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A friend told me recently that a song on the new daft punk record (I think it was "veridis quo") sounded like "dentist room waiting music". Maybe he was right :)

― fernando, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

does your friend work for pitchfork?

― ethan, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Two more Henson references: 1) was unable to take the last Mercury Rev lp at all seriously for being reminded of Kermit's nephew being halfway up the stairs whenever the singer opened his mouth. 2) Taylor Parkes once mentioned a superb example of this kind of thing on some Neil Young song ('Everybody knows that this is nowhere'?) and the line 'Big bird's flying across the sky' - and subsequent indelible mental image of Mr Snuflupagus's yellow pal flying sadly across a Canadian horizon.

― stevie t, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Classic: Animal and Gloria (she was cute, too, for a blonde fish)

Dud: overrated hornman in green hat

― mark s, Wednesday, 9 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"I got erection" - Turbonegro

I will now only think of some odd ILM conversations when I hear this song. But I only downloaded this song in the first place thanks to ILM, so fair is fair I suppose.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i will think of apartment building roofs, goldschlager, mussel shells being thrown at pedestrians from on high, a cheap boom box, apocalypse dudes, and some guy named ramon.

― fred solinger, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Did you ask Otis before you borrowed his writing style? ;-)

I know the Solinger is getting picked on a lot today, but on my part at least it is all in good fun...

― Nicole, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

how can it NOT be in otis's writing style when this whole weekend (and my memories of turbonegro) is due to him? it's quite a long and humorous story but it'd probably be off topic.

― fred solinger, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, that's okay. It seems like it's one of those "You wouldn't understand, midwestern peasant" kind of things...

― Nicole, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen (the John Cale cover) - my 'friend' said it sounded religious. Some people are so narrow minded.

Everyone: I just can't find that turbonegro track, anything else by them/he/she/it? Ah, now I know why there's been so much talk about it. Not something you type everyday.

― K-reg, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We should have a midwestern peasants' revolt, Nicole. But then again you're cosmopolitan compared to me. I shall have my very own midwestern peasants' revolt then.

― Josh, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, cosmopolitan in the sense that I go to school in a city that looks like post-war Berlin (seriously). Don't know if that's necessarily a good thing...

― Nicole, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We are getting DANGEROUSLY CLOSE to telling the story of the weekend publically, which is no fair since I don't remember it. Though I do have some blackmail worthy info on what SOLINGER did to keep him quiet about my behavior...ha.

When I think about mussel shells I think about Are You Ready For Darkness though, oddly.

― Ally, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's no question mark in the title, because you ARE ready for some Darkness. Mussel shells are the black magic that penetrates daily life, and keeps your clock ticking. Especially if you listen to a band called Turbonegro.

― Otis Wheeler, Tuesday, 15 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's a Fugazi track on Stedy Diet of Nothing which closes with Guy singing "Its time to meet your maker." My brother pointed out that it sounds like "Its time to meet Jamaicans" and ever since, thats all I hear.

― bnw, Wednesday, 16 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd rather meet Jamaicans than my maker, you know. They have Red Stripe.

― Ally, Wednesday, 16 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

led zeppelin once confused "d'yer maker" with jamaica. i confused "the age of pamparius" with the who.

― fred solinger, Wednesday, 16 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The line in Papa Was a Rollin' Stone "and Mama looked up with a tear in her eye" I always mis-heard as "and Mama looked up with her tin eye". I never thought through how ridiculous that would be - but on a subconscious level it seemed plausible that really poor people who lost an eye through illness might only be able to afford a tin replacement. Now of course I can't hear it any other way, but rather than spoiling the song for me it's become the hightlight.

― Scott, Wednesday, 16 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am completely unable to remember Chris Rowley from Huggy Bear without being reminded of an MM review which described him as being the group's "Einar problem." A real Emperor's New Clothes moment...

― suzy, Thursday, 17 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Listening to the Butterfield Blues Band's 'East-West' again last night, a friend leans over and comments - "you know this sounds a lot like Bob Weir." And everything I thought I trusted about the late '60's LA scene became as smoke in the air. I think I'm better fot it.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 23 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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