This thread was inspired by Cat's post about the Peanuts theme and it got me thinking about songs that have become better known for not what they were intended.  I'll start off with one that is quite legendary...

Video Killed The Radio Star is a song by British new wave group The Buggles that was released in September (UK) and November (US/Canada) of 1979 and peaked at UK #1 in October and US #40 in December.  When MTV launched in America in 1981, the music video for it was the first video the channel played, and because of this, the song has since become well-known as an 80s song and often shows up on compilations of 80s hits

In some countries, the song does qualify as an 80s hit.  In Canada, it was released at the same time as the US, but it had a longer chart life and peaked at #6 in February of 1980.  Also, the song was first recorded by it's British co-author Bruce Woolley who released it as a single with his band Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, and while this version did not chart in the US, UK or nationally in Canada, it peaked at #18 during April of 1980 on a nationally known Top 40 chart from a Toronto radio station called CHUM.  This led to it's appearance on the Canadian release of the 1980 K-Tel album called Power Play


The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star
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Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club - Video Killed The Radio Star
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Remember the smash hit song Wouldn't it Be Good from the 1986 film Pretty in Pink?  Of course you do, but what if I told you that wasn't a hit?  CRAZY! you say?  BLASPHEMY!

The version that appears in that film is performed by former Three Dog Night vocalist Danny Hutton and his band The Danny Hutton Hitters.  The original version was written and performed by British singer Nik Kershaw in 1984 and was a Top 40 hit everywhere it charted except for the US where it peaked at #46, and it is because of this is why I believe the song is often mistaken as being a hit from that film as the soundtrack may have been many people's introduction to the song

This one is more a case of mistaken identity, but it still fits.  The video of Nik's I posted below even says on the YouTube page that it's from Pretty in Pink.  I do quite enjoy Danny Hutton's version a lot, but to me, it will always be the original by Nik as the go to. 


The Danny Hutton Hitters - Wouldn't It Be Good (1986)
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Nik Kershaw - Wouldn't It Be Good (1984)
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We went to see Bryan Adams in concert about 10+/- years ago. He told us the story about the song Heaven that a lot of people play at their weddings and such was written for a movie (A Night in Heaven) about a strip club.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6TtwR2Dbjg


Cat

We went to see Bryan Adams in concert about 10+/- years ago. He told us the story about the song Heaven that a lot of people play at their weddings and such was written for a movie (A Night in Heaven) about a strip club.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6TtwR2Dbjg


Cat


I remember learning about that one way back as I had never heard of that movie before, and to date, I still have never seen it.  Heaven is technically a soundtrack hit, but the single release came 2 years after the film and the music video makes no reference to the film. 

I remember learning about that one way back as I had never heard of that movie before, and to date, I still have never seen it.  Heaven is technically a soundtrack hit, but the single release came 2 years after the film and the music video makes no reference to the film.


I think he was probably trying to distance himself from the film because it was pretty much a bomb-which is why no one remembers it.


Cat

Need I say more about this one? This song has been used for every purpose under the sun--funerals, disasters (Sept 11, mass shootings, etc), religious occasions of every which kind,  none of which have much to do with anything about the song. A song which truly took a bizarre road to becoming a standard.

"Hallelujah"
written by Leonard Cohen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

People mistook this one for a patriotic, rah-rah, flag waving song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw5yN4AMwOI

Somehow this seriously anti-draft, anti Vietnam War, anti-establishment song of the 1960s, a "subversive" song of the highest order (I don't say that negatively), became a cozy Thanksgiving "tradition" for many. Go figure.

Arlo Guthrie
"Alice's Restaurant Masacree"
1967

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaKIX6oaSLs