What's the oddest, most out of context music you've heard being piped into the supermarket ether as you do your weekly shop? I mentioned my own company's somewhat limited offerings in a previous post, though I'm pleased to report that they've upped their game a little in the interim. Every now and then a random Bowie song will drop into the mix and a couple of months back several Bob Marley songs entered the playlist rotation and still occasionally pop up to delight me when I least expect it. These are very welcome additions to the rather limited selection of tracks that have formed the basis of my working soundtrack for the past couple of years. Every now and then however, complete one-offs appear from nowhere, play once and disappear forever. While dragging a cage full of cakes from the warehouse in the summer, I was surprised to hear 'Turning Japanese' by The Vapours jumping out of the speakers and on another day the reasonably obscure 'One Step Up' by Bruce Springsteen got an airing, neither of them to be heard again. Nothing prepared me for what I found myself involuntarily singing along to a couple of weeks ago though. I made it, word perfectly, through the first verse, before I fully cottoned-on to what was playing over the music system of a bustling supermarket in the Autumn of 2021. I was gobsmacked, though disappointed that I couldn't find anyone else my age on-shift, with whom to share my bewilderment. Whose idea was it to put this on the playlist?
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4 comments:
I hope the playlists are not circulated UK wide!
CC. I'll let you know if I catch 'Ally's Army' being played in the store.
I had a recent out-of-body experience when I heard Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" in the supermarket.
Its time-honoured brilliance contrasted sharply with the blandness of the breakfast cereal aisle, and I had to compose myself before I hit the jars 'n cans.
Crikey - Round about the time of the Euros I suppose but how bizarre to have it on the playlist.
I revisited this song myself round about that time and reminisced about how my dad and I had collected those coins from petrol stations with their faces on them. Mexico 1970 was the first World Cup I remember but as you say if no-one else of our demographic was in the supermarket at that time, it would have meant nothing. Bobby Moore was quite a chap and we lost him far too soon.
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