What are some songs you remember from the past that DON'T get played on the radio anymore?
There are some songs that get played on the 80s station I listen to over and over, but I sometimes think of songs that they never play and miss them. Do you have any favorite songs of the past that never seem to get air time?
Mexican Radio:Wall of Voodoo
Don’t Pay the Ferryman: Chris de Burge
This isn’t a favorite, but it was when I was a kid and I know why they don’t play it anymore, but I get nostalgic thinking about it.
Superbowl Shuffle:The Chicago Bears
There are more, but these are off the top of my head.
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Anything by Milli Vanilli. I miss them.
I liked their stuff and when people complain that they were “fake” they seem to forget that there WERE people behind that music—just not the people who fronted the band. And those people deserve credit.
Rock It: Herbie Hancock
And this song sticks in my head after the iconic movie “Tapeheads”
Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles
Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.
@Dan_Lyons: Put on any rock station and you will hear Stairway to Heaven.
“I Gotcha” by Joe Tex.
I miss all the wonderful jazz and blues and funk that the black singers introduced us to. It was much more prevalent in the 60’s and 70’s than it is now. The Spinners, The Four Tops, Aretha, all those guys.
Stairway to Heaven will never go away! Now we’re all gonna get that song stuck in our heads
Anything by the Mamas and the Papas, not even on the classic rock stations. Great band, great harmonies.
One of my favorites is Straight Shooter
Dang. Guess what I have stuck in my head. ‘DIG….rock n roll music something something out in LAAAA” “I DIG…the Mammas and the Poppas..” “When Michelle and Cass are wailin’...” “The radio won’t play it. Unless I lay it…between the liiiiines!”
Red Rubber Ball by The Cyrkle It came out when my mother was handed her breast cancer “death sentence” so the words had special meaning to me. Listen, you will see why.
My Boy Lolipop by Millie Small. My friends and I sang that at the top of our lungs the summer it hit the charts.
I know that this is almost like spam, but you should try streaming KHBL Radio sometime, @keobooks. It’s the oddest mix I’ve ever heard of. When I pulled in the driveway from work one day, it was playing Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Got in the car in the morning and “Who Let The Dog’s Out” was playing. One day recently June and Johnny Cash were followed by the Stones, followed by some other unrelated genre. They get on boring jags of, say 80’s pop, but if you hit them on a good day it’s very entertaining.
It’s funny, when I was a school kid in the 70s, the “Oldies” station here in Boston was on AM and played songs from the 40s.
In the 80s, they moved to the FM dial and played songs from the 50s.
In the 90s, their music was from the 60s and 70s.
Now they’re gone (WODS is one of many dance/pop stations now) and nobody on the dial plays music from the 40s or 50s anymore.
of course the beauty of internet radio (Pandora or iTunes Radio I use) is that you can make your own stations geared toward any era, artist, or genre.
Weird AL Yankovich’s music.
‘One Night in Bangkok’. Then again I never listen to radio, so maybe it does get played.
@jca I have been listening for Stairway to Heaven by Zeppelin for months and nothing.
I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a classic rock station for longer than like 10 minutes without hearing ‘Stairway to Heaven’.
First sorry for not using English.
This.
My mom used to adore that song and she turned on the radio just to listen to this. I was about 3 then, I didn’t understand anything but it was kind of catchy :p
I heard “Mack the Knife” the other day. Before my time, but what a great song!
The music station I listen to in the car has a very limited range so I usually have on NPR. At home I have on country music, 24/7. What I really wish for is a classic country station.
Hot Rod Lincoln, Junk Food Junkie, anything from The Dave Clark Five.
“I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.”
“Rain drops keep falling on my head.”
@Dan_Lyons: You have to listen to a classic rock station. Any classic rock station will play Stairway to Heaven at least twice a day. You can probably look at their play lists online and see it there, to make sure you have the right kind of station.
It’s not there, but you go ahead and keep telling me it is so.
Another song I never hear by Ballin jack, Found a Child
@Dan_Lyons: I don’t know what you are talking about, as on any Classic Rock Radio Station, Stairway to Heaven is usually either #1 or #2 of the top classic rock songs of all time (usually competes with Free Bird). Here’s the 104.3 NY Classic Rock radio station playlist for this past week, showing Stairway to Heaven is on the 200–220 playlist for the week:
http://www.q1043.com/music/playlist/index.html?net=201
I’m sure if you go to any classic rock radio station playlist you will find Led Zep Stairway to Heaven on one of the most popularly played song list. Because it’s usually #1 or #2, it’s likely to get played.
Thanks @jca for all the investigating. I shall check out your station.
Locally Brewer and Shipley’s traditional version of this song was a staple for years, and we’d break out in song every time it played. I’ve heard it on the radio in the past year, but no more than 1–2 times.
LOL @ibstubro One Toke Over the Line performed by ~~~ Lawrence Welk!!!
A personal fave, @Dan_Lyons, and IMO spot-on. Genuine answer with a pee-in-your-pants attachment! Like an acid flashback you never had.
In the Ghetto. I haven’t heard that song in forever.
I was thinking about something similar to this the other day funnily enough. It crossed my mind that music from the likes of Abba etc get played on the radio (certain stations at least) regularly still, but music from bands that were incredibly successful for a period of two to ten years in the 90s and earlier 2000s is mostly forgotten. For example, The Spice Girls were massive for a while (at least 5 to 10 years at a guess) but you never hear their stuff on the radio any more and I wondered why that was.
@Leanne1986: Music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s is now played on “Oldies” stations. I think 90’s music is not yet considered oldies but yet it’s not current either. I really enjoyed having Sirius, because they have specific stations categorized by era.
One Tin Soldier makes me cry.
Fox On the Run makes me feel high.
Cherokee Nation is sad.
Oh God. Timothy! I had to click on it to remind me. Oh God.
Didn’t they eat Timothy.
Timothy, Timothy where on earth did you go…
YES THEY ATE TIMOTHY!!! :’(
Thanks a lot @Kardamom for the ‘Timothy’ reminder. Bleech!
Thanks @Kardamom , Snoopy vs. The Red Baron by The Royal Guardsman was awesome!
In the early 70’s, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” was so popular that if you turned on your radio and it wasn’t playing, you would channel surf until you found it. I have never heard it after that – I think it was one of those songs that got so overplayed at the time, that no one every wanted to hear it again as long as they live.
Seasons in the Sun is so, so sad.
Goin’ Down Mickey Dolenz (of the Monkees.)
Pat-chese, oh, what can I do?
I swe-ar, I’ll always love you,
It may not be right,
But I’ll join you tonight,
Patches, I’m coming to you.
Reminds me of that other one, where the girlfriend dies in his arms after a car crash. I can’t think of how it goes now.
Oh gag! My husband sings that damn song every chance he gets. He sang it at a Vietnamese barbque our neighbors had, and they had a karaoke machine.
I was out on a date in my daddy’s car
We hadn’t driven very far
There in the road, just a straight a head
A car was stalled, the engine was dead.
I couldn’t stop so I swerved to the right
I’ll never forget the sound that night…..
^^^Completely out of my own memory. It is the Dumbest. Song. Ever.
Yes, that’s it! “Where oh where can my baby be” and something-something. What horrible songs.
The Lord took her away from me!
She’s gone to heaven so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world!
OK, so nevermind about the woman you will choose to marry and spend the rest of your life with and have kids with and all that some day when you grow up. Yeah, just gonna pine away over some girl that you didn’t even know you loved until she died! :( Bleh.
Oh, yeah, @Kardamom. Like we really needed to be reminded of “Pop Muzik” & “My Sharona”!
Just when you think the horror has receded…
I listen almost exclusively to NPR, but I remember the song Honey was very popular when it came out. It is so treacly sweet that I hope it made it to the musical dustbin.
@Dutchess_III At least I got Last Kiss right! Must be my virginity interfering with my clear thinking again.
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I am a Rock
You got the name of thesong right, but the wrong band. I’ve never heard any version of it other than the one by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, 30 years before Pearl Jam ever became a band.
Belly – Feed the Tree, Dead Can Dance – The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove, Frente – Bizarre Love Triangle
And let us not forget Chickaboom by Daddy Dewdrop.
How about “Dead Skunk (in the middle of the road)”. My sister loved that song – ha-ha!
Especially when he says, “come on, stink!”
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