Instrumental songs you had a hard time identifying

aka "so THAT'S what that song is called"

Instrumentals are Probably the toughest type of song to figure out its title, etc. since there's no or very few words in them

What were your toughest ones to figure out?

My most recent one was "Cast Your Fate to the Wind", which I found here via a descriptive "what song is this?" thread here.

 

I had a hard time identifying Sleep Walk by Santo and Johnny for a long time when I was young. Found the title after I started working at a record store.

 

There is a very famous semi classical piece with strings they have for things like Ice Skating which I put on a CD for one of my Niece's dance performances once, I'm buggered if I know the title though.

 

Kenny Dorham, Sao Paulo, I heard this in a coffee shop once and I knew right away that it was Blue Note in the 60s and that I owned it but it still took awhile to figure out which tune

 

Great song !
My first exposure to it though was via The James Gang using it on ' Rides Again'
When I got around to hearing the original I thought it was a cop from them.

 

Every composition by Thelonious Monk. I know the tunes, I know the titles, but I never remember which goes with which!

 

There's a new-agey / Berlin-school style electronic instrumental that I've been trying to track down for years. I think it dates to the early 80s, maybe older. Arpeggiated chords, a repetitive sequencer line and lush pads but that's all I have to go on. Sounds like Tangerine Dream but I'm pretty sure it's not. I just know the song itself. I've sometimes wondered what would happen if I uploaded a cover of it onto YouTube just to see who files a claim to have it removed!

 

This one drove me nuts for a bit.
Paul Mauriat- Love Is Blue

 

I’ve mentioned this here before: I spent many years listening to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” in TV ads, not knowing its name. And at the same time I knew Brubeck had a classic by that name and wondered how it went...

Not sure if that’s the kind if thing the OP is looking for, but there you go.

 

For years I never knew which ELO song I used to hear all the time on the radio. It was “Fire on High” and strangely as popular as it was, it was missing from most of their compilations.

 

The choir was telling you the song title all along
Kinda neat my local still plays it on occasion

 

Another one that drove me nuts for a while was "The Popcorn Song." I had heard the melody when I was a kid in the early 70s. About 10 years ago I was listening to a Widespread Panic show from 7/16/1999. During a song called "Bear's Gone Fishing" I heard that familiar melody because the keyboard player was teasing it. I had forgotten all about it by then. I instantly recognized the melody but I couldn't remember where it was from when I was a kid. I ended up calling my older brother for help. I hummed the melody over the phone to him. He knew what I was referring to but he couldn't immediately identify it. About a week later he called back and told me he figured it out.

 

The HIT version of "Popcorn" in my part of the country was this version by HOT BUTTER on MUSICOR RECORDS ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ElR5alk5Pg

 

Interesting I don't remember that. Was it instrumental or did they add lyrics?

 

That's a great example, when you hear it you go "Oh I've heard that before but didn't know the name"

 

It's on ' The Bomber ' ; they weave the instrumental bit into the tapestry of the song. Good it is too. Great album.

 

LOL he's listening to that and "Are You Experienced", quite a wide range of styles there !

 

Oh ok that explains it, I have that album and didn't remember seeing it listed

 

Another one for me was Herb Alpert's "Rise", which I had heard many times but never knew the title

 

Axel F and Rockit, actually used to confuse the two lol

 

There's been two from my childhood I just can't track down. Childhood themes are tricky, because often there's really no "hit single" to go with it...it could be something you hear in a school kid's theater that you remember from playing on Romper Room years ago to some puppet skit...or, it could be a b-side from a children's record...or, in my most frustrating example, a news theme.

When I was watching Captain Kangaroo around '59 or '60, CBS would follow it with a (I believe) 15-minute newscast, with this sprightly glissando string opening, followed by a melody played on celeste, in I assume were 16th notes. Almost more of a "Ladies Day at The Movies" theme, moreso than your standard, dour-voice-over-A.P.-machine-clakety-clack. It wasn't consistent, it didn't always play for that newscast - and, I heard it in other broadcasts as well. Obviously from some long-forgotten library music collection.

But, I worked in radio production for years, so getting familiar and geeky with library music was kind of my thing. Especially the vintage, "dawn-of-broadcasting" stuff.

 

Back in 1990, I began enjoying this 7-minute instrumental which I had recorded from the radio. Never heard it before that, and didn't know who it was. The station / DJ never identified the band or the song name, but it sounded like a song by Santana.

After 2 months, I finally figured out that it was an Allman Brothers' song, and its name was "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed."

 

As a teen growing up in the 1980s, I faithfully recorded each episode of NBC's Late Night with David Letterman to view the next day after school. During the recurring 'Stupid Pet Tricks' segment, sidekick Paul Shaffer and his World's Most Dangerous Band inevitably played an infectious, almost anthemic instrumental to soundtrack the ridiculous feats of the dogs, cats, monkeys and barnyard animals taking the Studio 6A stage.

Over time I grew to know the song well, but still knew nothing about its origins — was it a Shaffer original? — until one day, I heard a recording of the track on a classic hits radio station. Now we were getting somewhere. At this point I knew enough about pop music to date the recording to the mid-to-late Sixties; the buoyant horns were the dead giveaway. It was funkier than Motown, tighter than Stax; was it a James Brown instrumental, perhaps? Alas, the deejay did not supply the artist or title. The search continued.

Fast-forward many years later: Letterman's moved on to CBS and I've moved on as well, without the bandwidth or compulsion to record and watch every episode of his program. But my interest in music has deepened, and I'm snapping up as many reputable soul and funk compilation CDs as I can afford. I'm listening to one of them, and the music suddenly stops me in my tracks: This. Is. The. Song. I reach for the jewel case, and there it is, credited to one Cliff Nobles & Co.

Its title? "The Horse." Of course.

 

When I was younger, Green Onions was one I always wanted to know the title of...


A few years ago, I heard some circus / calliope music used on a talk radio show and it took me months to figure it out...(and I can't find it now...it was like Circus Music 5 or something)

 

This one sounded like 1 repeating word in it, which I always heard as "Volcano". Took me the longest time to find it, finally looked up "60s surf rock instrumentals" on Google and found it

The Bar Kay's, "Soul Finger", ended up being 2 words