everett ,

Creative use of search engines and possible lyrics have helped chip away at most of my list over the years. But two tough ones have been bouncing around my head since the early 90s.

One was a rap song I remembered from the radio with a really catchy hook. Then a few years ago during a birthday party the hook was suddenly just there blaring from the speakers, so I grabbed for my phone to search the audio. People yelled at me to put it away and keep dancing, but only I knew what was at stake! The song that was playing was Wilfredo Vargas - Abusadora, although clearly that's not even remotely rap. But knowing that title, it wasn't long before I found the song from my memory, which had sampled it. It turns out the original song is much better.

The second one was even more elusive, but it kind of nagged at me because even as a kid I had a sense of how massively popular this Spanish-language song was, so it felt like this one should be easy to find. But just a year or two ago I heard it blaring from the speakers while walking past a restaurant! Again with the audio search, I managed to identify it as Kaoma - Lambada and, whoops, my memory was wrong and it wasn't even Spanish! But I was right about it being massively popular — plus the song has been widely covered, remixed and sampled (and even that popular version was itself a cover). Except none of this would have helped because the part of the song I thought was catchy was clearly not the iconic hook melody that everyone knows, so humming it for people never helped anyone get close to the answer.

verity_kindle ,
@verity_kindle@sh.itjust.works avatar

"In The Meantime" by Chris Knight

Nemo ,

"Sol Clap" by Quantic

Came up in my Spotify suggested and I was like "I know this song!"

wandermind , (edited )

Also Conquest of Paradise for me! I had the tune randomly pop up in my head for well over a decade, probably close to two, without having any idea what it was. Every few years I tried finding out what it was, but to no avail. Online melody searches weren't that good, and when I hummed the melody to people or played it on the piano, people either had no clue or, at best, were like "that sounds familiar but I have no idea what it is". I even toyed with the idea that I had come up with the melody myself, though I did find it unlikely.

I can't describe the happiness I felt when I finally discovered the actual song when I once again tried finding it, this time by humming into Google's music search thing

udon OP ,

Besides not finding the song, I was very sure it was played in a key scene in a weird fantasy movie/show I watched as a kid. Found the song but not the movie, yet

Num10ck ,

wasnt it the main theme of 1492?

udon OP , (edited )

Yes, but I specifically remember a scene in a mordor-like setting. A witch/queen kind of character is sitting in a carriage that is part of a longer caravan with her servants. Some dude (maybe the main character?) talks to her, tries to convince her that being good is good. But she denies, drives away with her entire caravan, end of movie.

I don't think that would happen in a movie about discovering America?

To be fair though, I was maybe ~8 at the time and might have mixed a few things together. So maybe that movie doesn't even exist

Skua ,

She's a Star by James. The only part I could remember was the "star" part of the chorus, which is not exactly an easy lyric to decipher when you hear it on a supermarket radio. Eventually I found it by buying a James CD and running into that track by chance

observantTrapezium ,
@observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca avatar

I had the tune to Men of Harlech stuck in my head for almost 20 years, then I randomly watched a video about Wales that used it, and I was able to make the connection from there.

SirSamuel ,

I had one like that a while back. I'd heard the song on Pandora a few times and liked it, but it was just background music while i was working. The tune was catchy, but I couldn't remember the lyrics at all. I tried humming it into sound hound and stuff, but to no avail.

Finally my wife was playing Pandora when I came home from work and it was on.

Welcome Home, Son - Radical Face

Back in the late nineties I had the reverse problem. I heard a cover of Bakers Street by the Foo Fighters on an independent radio station. I knew it was from a Japanese version of The Colour and the Shape, but no one had the CD. (Actually it was the UK version of the single My Hero, but either I misheard or the DJ was wrong. No wonder I couldn't find it.) Then, Napster happened. I've still got that song somewhere on an old HDD, in all its 128 Kbps glory

Jackthelad ,

I got lucky in a sad way recently with discovering a song I'd had stuck in my head.

It was "Peter Gunn" by Duane Eddy, and I finally got the name of the song but only because of the news of his death.

lurch ,

Sorry, still looking. 30 years.

udon OP ,

let me know when you got it

altima_neo ,
@altima_neo@lemmy.zip avatar

When I was a kid in 1992/93, I'd listen to the local hip-hop station. They're play house music at night and there'd be a track that would come up that was super catchy. Being the early 90s, and late night radio of just hour long mixed music, they'd never call out the song title and there's was no internet to look it up on a playlist or something. It also didn't help that the song was basically nonsensical lyrics, so describing the song by it's lyrics was pretty worthless. Though I did try to look for it through the years, I never had much luck. It was so strange to me that a seemingly popular song just disappeared like that.

At some point in the late 2000s, I managed to discover a forum that specialized in identifying songs. I happened to have a recording of the song on cassette from the days I'd sit by the radio with my thumb on the record button for when my favorite songs would come up. I uploaded a small clip of it for them to identify it. A few days later after some incorrectly identified songs, someone says, "Nightcrawlers- Push the Feeling On". Damn! I was elated! I looked it up on YouTube and there it was, with a music video too! I was very happy that day.

udon OP ,

Nice! If you had waited for another decade, you might have come across it again in Pitbull's cover!

not_woody_shaw ,

Usually some soul-jazz post-bop joint but I can never figure out if it's Cannonball Adderley or Lee Morgan.

j4k3 , (edited )
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

There's this one blues song that had a line about a "sweet little thing" by a guy down in Louisiana doing this southern rock style blues. I liked the song in a situationship that ended weird, quit using the streaming service I discovered the song with, and now I can't remember enough to find it.

Edit:

Tab Benoit "Little Girl Blues"

I tried plugging it in to the Mixtral 8×7B I have up right now and got it, or at least the name of the artist was right:

Question: There was a song I really liked that was from a guy down in Louisiana that sang in a bayou blues meets southern rock style. The chorus and maybe even the name of the song was something about a "sweet little thing". I first heard it on Spotify around 2017. I remember looking up the guy's name and he was touring around the USA at the time. Do you have any idea who I'm talking about?

Factual answer: The song is likely "Sweet Little Thing" by Tab Benoit, a blues musician from Louisiana known for his bayou-influenced sound. He has been actively touring in the United States since at least 2017. This information aligns with your description of the artist and song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZCCT8Cv62M

tobogganablaze ,

If I knew enough about it to describe it in a comment, I wouldn't have trouble searching for it.

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