Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

I don't mean necessarily due to content but just songs that you were surprised to hear for one reason or another.

Once on a family vacation many moons ago while flipping through the stations my dad came across "Down in it" by Nine Inch Nails. I've never heard that before or since on the radio.

Several years ago when the Pink Floyd Echoes compilation came out the local station, KRXO, played "Sheep" and "One of these Days." These were both surprising to hear considering those songs aren't well known outside of fans. Just strange hearing something other than "Money" and "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2." Again, never heard these before or since on the radio.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

---- You by Dr. Dre.

Can't even say the title, it's beeped or silenced so much, why play it on radio?

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Easily the biggest shock I ever had was hearing Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" on a Top 40 station right when it was released in 1988. Their music before was always very quirky and thick in Australian topics. Thing is, this new song was no different. I still can't figure out how that got play outside of rock radio (hell, outside college radio). I love that band to death, but it still was odd.

The summer of '86 I was in a dentist's office and heard "Fall On Me" by R.E.M. That might have been the first time I heard them on a pop radio station and it was also kind of weird (at the time).

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Straight To Hell-The Clash
Heard it on a radio station in San Diego.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

As a PJ fan from near the very beginning, I always thought it was crazy that "Yellow Ledbetter" ended up becoming such a radio staple....I mean, here was a two year old (released in 1992, charted in 1994), somewhat obscure (at the time) b-side, with half-mumbled unfinished lyrics, that just caught on and grew in popularity despite not being released as a single....

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

One of the local channels plays pretty much any old Nirvana song, it's hard to keep track of what were actually their hits anymore.

On the content side, ever since it came out, I've been confused as to how "Heaven Beside You" by Alice in Chains seems to have slipped past the FCC (I've never heard it edited).

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

I heard the Humpty Dance on the radio the other day which surprised me. Not only that but it was unedited, which struck me as very odd.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Well hearing the radio overnight where I work always has some interesting stuff. One of the guys that works for me likes to listen to this ghetto ass rap station and after midnight until like 4 in the morning they don't edit there stuff. Hear all kinds of crazy stuff then.

As far as songs in general another station here does Monday Night Metal and they all kinds of random stuff, most of the time only once. My favorite was Pig Destroyer, whom I never thought in a million years would ever be on the radio. Another station plays full albums on Sunday nights, so I've got to hear lots of obscure tunes there as well, including the unedited long version of In A Gadda Da Vidda and PF's Echoes.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

I used to hear this on the radio, and in western Kentucky. I'm sure it was edited, but you still got most of the song.



This may seem lightweight to many of you, but hearing Paul Simon's Kodachrome on the radio was a major watershed event in my youth. I was either pre-teen or early teens when I heard it come on the car radio on a family trip. For those that don't know, the first lyric is "when I think back to all the crap I learned in high school", and when I expressed astonishment that the song was on the radio, my dad thought I was talking about the c-word and made some dismissive comment (probably about overly permissive liberals), but what had really caught my attention was somebody openly criticizing the education system.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Laid Back's "White Horse" got a lot of un-edited airplay when it was an initial hit. But all the "Old School Oldies" stations that play it nowdays have to take the "Bitch"es out.

I remember hearing GNR's "November Rain" surprisngly pop up on a R&B station that I listened to at the time. That was odd. Edit-Just remembered that they also eliminated the lengthy instrumental section that closes the song too. Wasn't used to hearing the song end like that.

And of course, there was the time when I, along with other high schoolers, got to "Take over" the local radio station. Stuff like Metallica's "Dyers Eve" and Kid Frost's "Aint no sunshine" appeared. And since the only sources we had were the album versions, this meant that everything that was played was not radio friendly.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

I thought it was funny when that Shaggy song about some dude and his friend's girlfriend "butt-naked banging on the bathroom floor" was all over the airwaves. For a few months you couldn't go anywhere without hearing that song, and I'm thinking "Really? This is approved for public consumption?" I think it was about the same time Afroman's "Because I Got High" was tearing up the airwaves as well. No accounting for the public's taste. :lol:

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Hearing 99 Problems on an Alternative rock station (99.1 HFS to be exact) They also didn't bleep the song nearly as much as other stations "and a bitch ain't one" was unedited

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

The rock station in ATL played Monty Python's "I Bet You They Won't Play This Song on the Radio" once, I was surprised by that.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Killing in the name- Rage against the machine

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Hearing "Sheep" would be surprising, but "One of these Days" was a standard rotation song on AOR stations back in the day. (Heck, I think it was the only pre-TDSOTM song by Pink Floyd that ever got any regular radio play on the AOR stations.) Now what would really surprise me is if a broadcast radio station ever played the song "Echoes" in its entirety.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Remember back in 1973 the local AM top 40 station played "What A Shame" by Foghat. They never played it again as far as I know. Although LZ II is played to death on classic rock stations, was suprised one night in the 90s when "Bring It On Home" came on. First time, and I believe only time, I've heard that song played.
I use to be suprised when primarily album rock bands I'd been listening to on LP for some years broke through and one of their songs came on AM as a hit. Never expected Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" to appear on AM and was suprised when first heard it on the radio.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Unedited?

They play this song all the time on one of the local rock stations here, but it is all hacked up and shortened at the end to the point of it being unlistenable (to me)....

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

i know early in the decade 00 or 01, DC 101 would play certain songs unedited (mainly the Incubus song "Megalomaniac" and Green Days "Minority")

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Heard Richard and the Young Lions Open Up Your Door one day but I don't think that was a mainstream station possibly.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Heard Weird Science by Oingo Boingo tonight. I don't think I've EVER heard that on the radio.

Re: Songs you were surprised to hear on the radio
 

Unedited.