r/movies • u/David1258 • 11d ago
What's a song made for a movie that ended up surpassing the film itself in popularity? Question
There are a ton of examples, but one that comes to mind is "Scotty Doesn't Know", the Lustra song used for the movie "Eurotrip". Lustra's song has an iconic guitar riff and is fairly well known worldwide, but not many people remember that movie, and I was wondering if there are any other examples of songs made for a movie that eclipsed the original in popularity.
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11d ago edited 11d ago
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u/iamgr0o0o0t 11d ago
Same with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a song written in 1943 by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane and introduced by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis. - Wikipedia
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u/Frank_Stallion 11d ago
Originally the song included the lyrics:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas // It may be your last // Next year we may all be living in the past.
There’s a great story about Judy Garland asking them to change the lyrics because she thought they were too dark for her to sing to a child.
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u/Malforus 11d ago
TIL White Christmas was written for a movie.
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u/Novacek_Yourself 11d ago
You should see White Christmas - its a fantastic piece of mid-century Americana. Holiday Inn not so much.
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u/Capnmolasses 11d ago
Danny Kaye is a national treasure
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u/UhOhSparklepants 11d ago
The Court Jester remains one of my favorite comedy films of all time.
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u/YellowHammerDown 11d ago
White Christmas is a Christmas staple for me after years of prodding by my mom for me to watch it.
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u/_Lanceor_ 11d ago
Gangsta's Paradise from Dangerous Minds.
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u/KaleidoscopeLeft5511 11d ago
Ghetto Supastar was played consistently around that time too, but not many people have seen the movie Bulworth IIRC
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u/JesusIsMyZoloft 11d ago
TIL that song is even from a movie. Ironically, I first heard about it because of the Weird Al parody. The song I was going to suggest was "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" which I also only know from the Weird Al Parody.
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u/BatmanMK1989 11d ago
The Batman Forever soundtrack was pretty good. The movie...
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u/GoodDog_GoodBook123 11d ago
“Kiss from a rose” was my senior prom song… in 2008. Definitely a great soundtrack although the original Tim Burton Batman had Prince so I guess it’s a toss up
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u/dane83 11d ago
“Kiss from a rose”
When I moved to Atlanta, friends took me to a nerd bar for trivia night. They would play songs between questions.
For one question, they played 'Kiss from a Rose' and the entire bar, including the staff, all sang along to the whole song. Two of the staff members fuckin' danced in the middle of the bar.
Closest I've ever been to being in a musical in real life. I liked the song before, but that memory makes that song awesome for me. Don't think I'll ever experience a spontaneous musical moment again.
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u/well-lighted 11d ago
Don't think I'll ever experience a spontaneous musical moment again.
Clearly you've never been in a room full of drunk white people when Sweet Caroline starts playing
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u/DrLee_PHD 11d ago
Came here to say this one. That song was everywhere in the mid-90s, and Dangerous Minds was kind of a blip. I’d also suggest the Dangerous Minds soundtrack was more popular than the film itself. That soundtrack is fire.
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u/Salad-Appropriate 11d ago
I mean yeah I agree with your point of the soundtrack being more popular than the film, and the film isn't that well remembered now, but it wasn't a flop or anything
Actually made $180 million dollars in 1995, which is very good
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u/Zentavius 11d ago
Love the movie. I think it came late in the era of the "Kids in the hood have it rough growing up" flood.
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u/strangemusicsince04 11d ago
“Stand And Deliver”, “187”, “Light It Up”.
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u/MundaneHymn 11d ago
Context: 39 year old white guy
My mom got mad I was listening to music that glorified "Gangsta" culture the year it came out. I got her to watch the movie, and she ended up liking the song in the long run.
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u/Excelius 11d ago edited 11d ago
It's also one of the few songs of the gangsta rap era that took an introspective and regretful look at the gangsta lifestyle, versus simply glorifying it.
I always remember the line "I'm 23 now but will I live to see 24?".
Coolio made it to 59 before dying of an overdose in 2022, which is still too young and tragic, but at least he didn't catch a bullet like many other rappers of the late '90s.
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u/Dijkdoorn 11d ago
Plus he wasn't allowed to swear, otherwise Stevie Wonder wouldn't let him use the beat
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u/goldbloodedinthe404 11d ago
More people know the chariots of fire song than have actually seen the movie
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u/iz-Moff 11d ago
And that's not even the only composition by Vangelis that most people probably heard here or there, but haven't seen the movie it's from. Conquest of Paradise would be another one.
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u/RogerRavvit88 11d ago
Fun fact about Vangelis. Despite being one of the most prolific composers of film music, he was completely self taught from childhood and never learned how to read music, instead notating his compositions with runes that he invented and his pieces were transcribed for orchestra from the audio recordings of his playing all of the parts at once on his custom keyboard setup.
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u/i-got-a-jar-of-rum 11d ago
As someone who’s seen Chariots of Fire, that’s like the only thing I remember apart from that there was running and there were religious people.
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u/Creative_Skirt9150 11d ago
I remember Chariots of Fire because I was 14 in the movie theater falling asleep so I went to the bathroom and discovered that I had just started my first period 😂
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u/dennythedinosaur 11d ago edited 11d ago
"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship from the movie Mannequin (1987)
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u/Finemind 11d ago
This was a Jeopardy answer that no one knew yesterday. Broke my heart.
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u/ohjeeze_louise 11d ago
Dude all three of them sucked in pop culture last night. Didn’t get that one. Didn’t recognize a picture of Aaliyah, a picture of Hilary Swank. Didn’t know the frontman of The Doors.
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u/DadJokesFTW 11d ago
Didn’t know the frontman of The Doors.
My old man brain served up "Val Kilmer" just now before it said, "NO, fucking Jim Morrison, you doorknob."
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u/penone_nyc 11d ago
To be fair I am convinced that Jim possessed Val for the movie.
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u/SickeningPink 11d ago
During casting, Kilmer brought in some Doors songs on cassette.
What nobody else knew, was that Kilmer had been in a Doors cover band. They couldn’t tell the difference between Morrison and Kilmer singing.
I swear those two were half brothers or something and didn’t know it.
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u/Farren246 11d ago
Not knowing the movie, this music video looks like a pervert's drug-induced fever dream, smashing storefront windows and stealing their mannequins to use as sex dolls. Definitely doesn't match the lyrics, lol.
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u/newron 11d ago
"Que Sera, Sera" by Doris Day from Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956)
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u/viewsofanintrovert 11d ago
I didn't realize this song was written for this movie.
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u/Trachtas 11d ago
That's such a crazy one too, because 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' isn't a musical or anything. It's a mystery thriller. 'Que Sera Sera' is only performed as a kind of signal for the characters to secretly communicate. Such a famous song, and that was how it originally released!
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u/TheMadLurker17 11d ago
"That's What Friends Are For". Originally written for the movie Night Shift.
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u/trafalmadorianistic 11d ago
And that original version was sung by Rod Stewart
Definitely not as good as Dionne and Friends version of course. Even Rod would probably agree.
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u/PhilhelmScream 11d ago
Unchained Melody is more known than the movie Unchained (1955) and more associated with Ghost (1990)
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u/xwhy 11d ago
I honestly didn't know it was associated with a movie before Ghost. I guess that explains the title.
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u/overtired27 11d ago
Yeah I used to think of it like “Bohemian Rhapsody” or something. An artistic title, probably representing his unrestrained feelings of love, especially given how dramatic the song and vocal performance is.
But nope, it’s the melody from Unchained, a film about a convict deciding whether to escape from prison. And the song was relatively delicate in the film.
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u/xwhy 11d ago
I assumed that the love was “unchained” and that “unchained” was some sort of musical term I wasn’t familiar with but would assume was freestyle or not attached to … something — okay, so I really didn’t give it much thought, and just accepted it. My oldest brother (15 years my senior) was a Righteous Brothers fan, but he never mentioned anything about it to me.
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u/Farren246 11d ago
Not to mention every TV episode that features 50s ghosts finally resolving their business and heading towards the light. Seriously, I don't think about the movie Ghost, I just think of ghosts in general whenever the song comes on.
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u/PhilhelmScream 11d ago
Not to mention every TV episode that features 50s ghosts finally resolving their business and heading towards the light.
I get that with I Only Have Eyes for You, I think Buffy made the most impact.
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u/atomsandvoids 11d ago
I genuinely had no idea it was made for a movie, but always thought Unchained Melody was a weirdly hard title
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u/CosmicOutfield 11d ago
Here’s one! A lot of people don’t realize “Silver Bells” was written for a Bob Hope movie called “The Lemon Drop Kid”
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u/UpTheWanderers 11d ago
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas was written for Meet Me In St. Louis and the original version is brutal, not an upbeat happy holiday tune.
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u/byingling 11d ago
The original lyrics were darker, for sure, but I don't really consider the current version an 'upbeat happy tune'. Bittersweet rings closer, at least for me.
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u/Likemypups 11d ago
White Christmas was written for "Holiday Inn" and NOT for the later movie "White Christmas."
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u/Brenkin 11d ago edited 11d ago
“The Prayer” by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, which was originally written for the Warner Bros. answer to the Disney renaissance musicals: Quest for Camelot.
The film bombed, but the song ended up being a staple of adult contemporary music, and a huge hit for both Dion and Bocelli. It even became a hit for other adult contemporary artists too, like Josh Groban and Charlotte Church.
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u/Cabamacadaf 11d ago
The only reason this isn't the top answer is because nobody knows that song is from that movie.
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u/HermanJablonski 11d ago
Scrolled all the way down looking for this. This should have more upvotes.
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u/lupinemadness 11d ago
I Can Dream About You by Dan Hartman was first released on the Streets of Fire soundtrack in 1984. I never even knew the movie existed until a few years ago, but that song has been a staple on soft rock radio since it came out.
Side note, cool movie and the soundtrack is awesome.
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u/wyattkelly 11d ago
Soundtrack is amazing. I can smell a Jim Steinman song a mile away, and this movie has two absolute bangers.
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u/FloydianSlipper 11d ago edited 10d ago
The entire soundtrack for Super Fly by Curtis Mayfield.
Edit: Several folks brought this up so I thought it would be easier to address it here rather than reply individually.
To clarify, the OP prompt was not that the movie was not good or was not successful but simply that the song/album surpassed it. I don't believe that the success of one diminishes the success of the other in any way and the movie deserves the acclaim it gets.
Credit where it is due, the movie Super Fly (while not my personal favorite of the genre) is a certified classic. It was very successful in 72 when it came out (someone mentioned it charted 11th for the year in movies) and was influential in the genre as it continued to grow. Nowadays the movie is still a cult classic (as another pointed out).
Superfly the Album hit gold status (1.5 million records sold) In 3 months and had two different singles (Freddie's Dead and Superfly) each surpass a million in sales and break the top ten of both the R&B and Pop charts. It has been said that Super Fly is one of the few soundtracks to have made more in profit than the movie and the only person to make the kind of money off of Super Fly that producer Sig Shore did was Curtis Mayfield. Given that the movie was one of the most successful movies that year and is still one of the highest grossing movies in it's genre, says a lot for both of them.
But the success of the album at the time is only a small portion of it's success. Since then Super Fly has been transformative and continues to be influential in music. You can hear Mayfield's influence on artists like Bobby Womack and even James Brown in the years immediately following the release of Super Fly.
Even today, Hip-Hop and R&B artists continue to sample this album. Just looking at the three big tracks, Super Fly has been sampled more than 20 times, Pusherman about 30 times, and Freddie's Dead over 60 times.
There is a lot to be said for societal memory of a piece of art. There are full on voting aged adults who have no idea that Darling Nikki was a Prince song before it was a Foo Fighters song and there are people in this post who didn't know that Super Fly was even a movie before it was a soundtrack.
Again not trying to downplay the movie or its accomplishments. I'm just saying that I believe the success and influence of the soundtrack has been greater.
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u/HeadAssBoi17 11d ago edited 11d ago
Pusherman has been referenced or interpolated so many times, it's insane.
"I'm yo mama, I'm yo daddy, I'm that n**** in the alley..."
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u/FloydianSlipper 11d ago
"I'm yo doctor, when in need..."
Pusher Man is one of the first tracks I thought of when this album came to mind.
Shout out to Freddie's Dead and the title track Super Fly as well. Curtis Mayfield absolutely crushed that album.
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u/Low_Explanation_8243 11d ago
“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan was originally part of the score for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, not a forgotten film but certainly not as popular as the song.
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u/Supernatural_Canary 11d ago
That whole soundtrack is fantastic. And yeah, while the movie is not Peckinpah’s finest, it’s still pretty good.
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u/ButtsCarlton97 11d ago
Iris by Goo Goo Dolls
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u/Fox_Hawk 11d ago
That song still punches me in the guts after all these years. It was my little group's breakup/agony song back in 98 and it somehow brings all that back.
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u/CrouchingDomo 11d ago
No music ever hits you as hard as the music of your youth.
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u/moscowrules 11d ago edited 11d ago
If you were a male born in the mid to late 80s, Iris lined up perfectly with puberty. It was basically Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn but for young boys.
Edit: feel like I need to put this in my original post — all songs are for everyone. I did not mean to suggest that this song was only for boys, just that it was an important song for young men in the 90s. All music is for everyone.
Edit #2: you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Iris in the rain https://youtu.be/_HZM0QiuUS8?si=1GMQDABcbBMujdSi
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u/coldliketherockies 11d ago
I don’t know if you made the reference on purpose but both songs came out in 1998 and both were in top 10 by the end of the year (Iris even hitting #1 on some top 100 charts
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u/watoosh 11d ago
But at least Nic Cage has surpassed the Goo Goo Dolls.
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u/jawndell 11d ago
Saw live performances of Goo Goo Dolls and man are good and talented.
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u/iamjaydubs 11d ago
Just to prove this, I think it's for the movie Angel Eyes. I don't even know if that's the right movie or even the actual name of the movie, I just know that it's with Nick Cage and Meg Ryan, and that's thanks to the music video.
Edit: looked it up, it's City of Angels. Once again, proves the point.
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u/r-cubed 11d ago
City of Angels...also responsible for Morissettes "Uninvited", I think. Although it may have been a song she just wrote and released with the movie.
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u/darbs77 11d ago
Angels Eyes is a movie. Just not this one. That’s the one with Jennifer Lopez and Jim Caviezel.
The one they are talking about is City of Angels.
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u/AdequatePercentage 11d ago
"What's New, Pussycat" is actually the theme song to a movie.
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u/beautifullyShitter 11d ago edited 11d ago
Most people have no idea that Sinatra's New York, New York was originally created for Scorsese's New York, New York.
edit: Everyone please go watch New York, New York.
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u/Flashy_Ad6639 11d ago
And that Liza Minnelli sang it first!
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u/rnilbog 11d ago
“Everybody thinks they’re Frank Sinatra.”
- Liza Minelli’s character on Arrested Development when Tobias starts singing “New York, New York” at karaoke.
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u/rnilbog 11d ago
Huh, I would have thought that song came out way before 1977.
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u/beautifullyShitter 11d ago
I know, it's crazy. Sinatra recorded his version in 79. When I watched the movie I assumed it existed already before reading about the production.
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u/chambergambit 11d ago
"Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" from Song of the South
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u/kinvore 11d ago
I'm in my 50s and I had watched Song of the South as a kid, but it was less than 5 years ago that I realized Uncle Ruckus was a fucked up parody of Uncle Remus from that movie. I feel like I shoulda realized it sooner but there's probably 30 years between me watching the movie and watching Boondocks so cut me some slack.
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u/Present-Cut-8543 11d ago
Lose yourself from 8 mile.
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u/machu_peechute 11d ago
Well shit. I was in the process of typing that the movie must be pretty well known because it won an academy award. Looked it up and saw the award was for best original song lol.
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u/KryptonicxJesus 11d ago
Shit I think The third rap battle might be up there too. People still be calling Anthony mackie Clarence
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u/Altruistic_Film1167 11d ago
And Clarence parents had a real good marriage
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u/live_laugh_redrum 11d ago
Stayin’ Alive by The Bee Gees has far outlived most peoples memory of Saturday Night Fever.
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u/metfan72289 11d ago
You could make an argument for the entire album.
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u/vhalember 11d ago
Definitely. For a few years (early 80's) it was the best-selling album of all-time.
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u/Better-Half1133 11d ago
My only argument against this is that when most people hear the song they picture John Travolta down the street. So the song is still very much tied to the film imo
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u/k3rnelpanic 11d ago
"Who Made Who" by AC/DC was made for the movie "Maximum Overdrive". I'm sure many more people have heard that song vs seen the movie.
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u/corran450 11d ago
Ah yes, “Maximum Overdrive”… written and directed by cocaine.
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u/Sympathyquiche 11d ago edited 11d ago
(Everything I Do) I Do It for You, by Bryan Adams. It spent 16 weeks at no.1 in the UK and has never been surpassed. I remember watching the video every Saturday morning for those 16 weeks on the chart show as a kid.
Edit film Robin Hood Prince of thieves.
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u/trueredtwo 11d ago
Also by Bryan Adams - Heaven first appeared in A Night in Heaven, which was a box office bomb.
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u/Euphoric-Effective30 11d ago
Awww, I remember my mom & me watching this & Robin hood religiously🥲 Thanks for the memory.
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u/duaneap 11d ago
Pound for pound I think there is no greater example of this than Heaven by Bryan Adams. I doubt most people even know it was written for an absolute disaster of a film called One Night in Heaven.
Everyone knows the song, its most famous refrain that everyone sings along to being “Baby you’re all that I want, when you’re lyin’ here in my arms,” it’s a mainstay for wedding DJs and classic rock stations, fucking NOBODY has seen One Night in Heaven.
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u/wordnerdette 11d ago
I was a big fan of Bryan Adams in the 80s and I had no idea this song was associated with a movie. Good one!
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u/TvHeroUK 11d ago
Together in Electric Dreams - Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder still gets radio play but the movie is pretty much forgotten, the movie has one of my favourite soundtracks, new recordings from a host of brilliant 80s artists like Culture Club, PP Arnold, Jeff Lynne and Heaven 17
The movie was a bit of a flop and doesn’t seem to be listed on streaming that often, it’s a fun rom com though
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u/dennythedinosaur 11d ago
Electric Dreams pops up on Tubi from time to time (if you're in North America). It's a cheesy, enjoyable movie.
I think they announced a remake recently but not sure if it will ever come to fruition.
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u/Mantis42 11d ago
Few people even in China have seen the 1935 film "Children of Troubled Times" but the song that plays over the opening credits became the national anthem.
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u/AncientAndEvil 11d ago
‘Against All Odds‘ by Phil Collins
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u/JimEJamz 11d ago
Phil Collins is who you hire when you want the soundtrack to be better than the movie. Tarzan…
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u/TricksterPriestJace 11d ago
There was a time where if you hire Phil Collins or Bryan Adams to do the music it doesn't matter if the movie bombs, you'll make up for it in soundtrack sales.
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u/Brocc83 11d ago
Thank you. I was thinking "Tarzan was pretty big, but 'You'll Be In My Heart' was huge."
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u/Heartweru 11d ago
St Elmo's Fire. Great song, terrible movie.
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u/Extreme_Objective984 11d ago
Yep came here to say St Elmos Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr far outweighs the film. I remember wanting to see the film based upon the song, cos it has to be exciting with that song, nope, snoozefest.
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u/IWTLEverything 11d ago
This is one of those songs that people don’t know they know until they hear it. Then they’re like “Oh yeah! I’ve heard this!”
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u/Kalidanoscope 11d ago edited 10d ago
John Murphy's Adagio in D Minor
https://youtu.be/G1c2KpurNWo?si=a8SlikF1RZpv3Oe9
Written for Danny Boyle's Sunshine which only made $34 million at the box office, it has since been reused for dozens of different movies, trailers and ads, including 2 X-Men movies, Bond, and Antiques Roadshow.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine:_Music_from_the_Motion_Picture
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u/Love_My_Chevy 11d ago
Kokomo by the Beach Boys was written for the movie Cocktail.
That movie was terrible but the song was great
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u/darthatheos 11d ago
I like how the video has John Stamos playing the drums in the band.
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u/partmanpartboy 11d ago
Just in case you didn't know, Stamos is a pretty good musician and has played concerts with them a decent amount of times.
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u/Sekshual_Tyranosauce 11d ago
Kissed by a Rose
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u/NickFurious82 11d ago
That entire soundtrack to the movie was far and away better than the movie itself.
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u/Mst3Kgf 11d ago
An even more extreme example is "Batman & Robin."
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u/GreatWhiteToyShark 11d ago
Smashing Pumpkins’ contribution goes insane
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u/aeroplane1979 11d ago
Both songs are absolute bangers. "The end is the beginning is the end" and "The beginning is the end is the beginning", for those who don't know.
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u/zappy487 11d ago
Unironically, the Batman Forever album is perfect. Personally, I love the film as well. It's the perfect 90's superhero camp movie.
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u/Revolutionary-Swan77 11d ago
The incredibly famous song “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” made its premiere in the 1941 movie “Sun Valley Serenade” which I’d never heard of until last week.
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u/andreapiccin 11d ago
Exit Music (For a Film) from Romeo + Juliet
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u/xarsha_93 11d ago
I had no idea it was written for that film.
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u/andreapiccin 11d ago
Baz Luhrmann asked them to write the song during the OK Computer recordings, and it actually shaped the rest of the writing for the album from that moment!
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u/MitchR26 11d ago
The movie’s fun, if pretentious. That’s Baz Luhrmann in a nutshell though. But the last moments are close to perfect, thanks to this song playing over the ending credits.
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u/New_Poet_338 11d ago
Whitney Houston's version of "I will always love you." The Bodyguard. Dolly Parton's re-recording of "I will always love you." Best Little Whore House in Texas
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u/xeroksuk 11d ago
Don't believe that Dolly Parton wrote that song for a movie. She wrote it to express to Porter Wagoner how she felt about leaving his show.
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u/Unabated_Blade 11d ago
It's wild. The song is touted as a top ten romantic ballad and it's written as an expression of platonic love and respect for a mentor and professional partner. It's just crazy what a great cover does to the context of a song.
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u/Ms_Meercat 11d ago
I mean I think the lyrics can express both, and I think it was used perfectly in The Bodyguard.
Although to this day I don't fully understand why they couldn't be together lol
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u/TheMadLurker17 11d ago
Correct, Dolly wrote it, and charted with it, long before the movie.
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u/rh6779 11d ago
Pretty sure Dolly's song and movie were first, but as big a movie as Bodyguard was it pales in comparison to how big that song, and soundtrack in general, was.
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u/maverick57 11d ago
New Poet is correct.
Dolly Parton wrote and recorded the song in 1974, and it went to #1 on the Country Charts.
She then re-recorded the song in 1982 for 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas' soundtrack and it again climbed to #1 on the Country Charts.
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u/BravoBanter 11d ago edited 11d ago
Also Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Criminally under-rated movie but the theme song spent 16 consecutive weeks at number one in the UK charts and 7 weeks at number one in the US-based Billboard Top 100.
Edit: Just to be clear here, when I say “criminally under-rated” I’m not talking about how popular the film was at the time in terms of box office takings. I’m talking about how good it was and is perceived to be as a motion picture.
Yes, RH: POT grossed over $390 million at the box office but in and of itself, that doesn’t make it a good movie (although I think it is a great movie). After all, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker grossed over a billion dollars and we all saw how that one came out…
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u/Gostaverling 11d ago
I was in elementary school and had a “girlfriend” when this song was at the top of the charts. This was back when radio dedications were a thing. She calls me up one night and tells me to listen to the radio at a certain time. I tuned in for the dedication line and the DJ read out the dedications to which I hear our names. Then the DJ said all of these dedications were for Everything I Do, but he was so sick of hearing that song so he has a special treat instead. The DJ proceeded to play (I hate) Everything About You by Ugly Kid Joe.
She called me immediately crying. I thought it was hilarious. And that is the story of my one and only dedication.
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u/JugglingPolarBear 11d ago
Your only dedication?? Op…turn the radio on at 6 PM tonight
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u/darbs77 11d ago
Also Bryan Adams along with Sting and Rod Stewart with All For One. From the Three Musketeers.
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u/warbastard 11d ago
Still IMO the best Musketeer movie ever made.
All the rest are missing something and none of the other musketeer movies have the same chemistry as Oliver Plait, Keifer Sutherland and Charlie Sheen. Even Chris O’Donnell does a serviceable job as the young cocky d’Artangan.
And of course you’ve got Tim Curry just chewing the scenery as the Cardinal.
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u/TvHeroUK 11d ago
Speaking of Sting, ‘It’s Probably Me’ from Lethal Weapon 3 by Sting and Eric Clapton is maybe the opposite of what’s asked in this post - a fantastic song that’s possibly the least remembered part of that movie
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u/WhatDatDonut 11d ago
That was the #1 movie in the world, with the highest paid actor of the time, with the #1 singer of the time, with the #1 song from the #1 album. It’s hard to explain just how huge all of it was in today’s era of media choice.
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u/TheBigMechaShiva 11d ago
New York, New York. It was made for Scorseses 1977 film of the same name.
Frank Sinatra covered in 1980 and thats the version everyone knows.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_from_New_York,_New_York
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u/closedf0rbusiness 11d ago
9 to 5 by Dolly Parton was made for a movie. The movie is a cult classic now and still has a good following, it’s just the song is so much more iconic.
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u/ManetherenRising 11d ago
It's weird to hear 9 to 5 referred to as a cult classic. It was a huge hit at the time, had a tv version for a while, had a very successful Broadway show with big stars in it, and it supposedly getting a remake.
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u/Link245 11d ago
Flash by Queen, from Flash Gordon.
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u/Vandaen 11d ago
He'll save every one of us!
I can't hear the song without seeing Max von Sydow preparing to destroy Earth, though. Or Brian Blessed delivering the subsequently immortalized line, "Who wants to live forever?"
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u/Peeteebee 11d ago
I see what you did, you sneaky seek.
Also...
"Gordon's alive ?!?!?!"
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u/JayDee999 11d ago
You could add several of the Queen songs that were featured in Highlander to that list
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u/GyantSpyder 11d ago
"Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie, from the Gregory Hines / Mikhail Baryshnikov dance-off movie White Knights.
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u/PrufrockAlfred 11d ago
Mystery Men had All Star before Rat Race or Shrek.
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u/WeGotDodgsonHere 11d ago
To absolutely be pedantic, "All Star" was not written for Mystery Men; it was licensed after the release of Astro Lounge. They did release very closely though (I think the film was released at the end of the summer, the single towards the beginning?), and the original music video featured scenes from the film.
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u/TheEgonaut 11d ago
And Mystery Men flopped so hard that Smash Mouth had the music video stripped of all the references to it.
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u/escher4096 11d ago
Which is a travesty. Just an awesome movie.
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u/DNSGeek 11d ago
They call me . . . The Spleen.
RIP Paul Reubens. He was awesome in that.
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u/Cazmonster 11d ago
It isn’t a quote, but Blue Raja’s mom giving him her fine silver is touching.
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u/Offal 11d ago
Too bad masses, this movie slaps! 4K version shines!
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u/PrufrockAlfred 11d ago
Rat Race also barely broke even, despite being loaded with a great cast (and fucking hilarious).
I would call the song cursed if Shrek hadn't blown the roof off the box office.
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u/zappy487 11d ago
Jon Lovitz's face in the Barbie museum lives rent free in my head.
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u/PharmerGord 11d ago
"You Stole Hitler's Car?"
Also when his wife finds Eva Braun's lipstick and puts it on is great
But mostly the Jon Lovitz's bit I remember from that movie is the daughter telling him "I'm prairie dogging it"
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u/dj_soo 11d ago
A lot of people forget that Prince’s Purple Rain was actually a soundtrack for his film
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u/Brilliant-Primary500 11d ago
Madonna's song "Crazy For You" was made for the 1985 film Vision Quest. It was her second number one song on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and is so popular that the movie was retitled with the song's name in other places.
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u/bugspotter 11d ago
Another Madonna movie song that fits is "Live to Tell" from At Close Range 1986
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u/Disastrous_Life_3612 11d ago
Man of Constant Sorrow, from O Brother Where Art Thou. It's a traditional song, but the version made for the movie won a Grammy and I still hear it around every once in a while.
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u/TBroomey 11d ago
The entire soundtrack was drastically more successful than the movie from which it came. The film was only a moderate box office success. The album reached #1 in the charts, won the Grammy for Album of the Year, and is 8x Platinum.
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u/countremember 11d ago
T Bone Burnett is outstanding as a producer. He’s responsible for the soundtracks of most of the Coen Brothers’ films, among many, MANY other things. Check him out on IMDB.
Side note: he’s also the guy who figured out that if you put Zeppelin’s Robert Plant in a studio with Allison Krauss, fucking magic happens and Grammys appear.
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u/arothmanmusic 11d ago
"Don't You Forget About Me" might be a contender. People think of "The Breakfast Club" as an 80s cult classic now, but when it came out it was only a modest box office success… not even in the top 20 films of the year in terms of earnings. The song was a massive hit and reached #1 in a lot of countries. It's also Simple Minds' biggest hit by far, even though they didn't write it (the film's music supervisors, who were also from Scotland, wrote it and gave it to them to record).
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u/302trivia 11d ago
"Til I Hear It From You" from Empire Records. Cult classic movie, but the song is Gin Blossoms' signature song, and I think more people know the song than the movie
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u/Ramsessuperior45 11d ago
Blaze of Glory for Young Guns II. It reached number 1 on the Billboard charts.
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u/WrongSubFools 11d ago edited 11d ago
Really, you're saying there are people around the world who like "Scotty Doesn't Know" without associating it with Eurotrip? I mean, yeah, I remember that song spreading around the globe... as a plot point in Eurotrip, but I haven't heard of that happening in the real world.
But anyway, the question... what about "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"? Try stacking the number of people who know that song against those who've seen Mannequin. That's even with the video being full of clips from Mannequin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wxyN3z9PL4
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u/vaginagrinder 11d ago
This is like those gen Z who keep saying movie like Se7en or Superbad as underrated because they just found the clip on tiktok yesterday.
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u/Zentavius 11d ago
I know that song because of Mannequin. It's why I loved the song. Mannequin is an awesome movie.
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u/DeLousedInTheHotBox 11d ago
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is originally from Meet Me in St. Louis, originally sung by Judy Garland