My Top 1000 Songs #719: We Used To Be Friends

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

A song becoming too intractably associated with a tv show or movie or commercial can cut either way. Sometimes it totally ruins the song (for the longest time, I hated the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" because it made me think of Sunkist soda, and it took decades to appreciate the song again); other times, it can actually be a plus (I think the only reason I can still enjoy "Layla," despite years of classic rock overplay and the taint of Clapton, is because it conjures up that amazing scene in Goodfellas).

The Dandy Warhols' "We Used To Be Friends," off 2003's Welcome To The Monkey House, falls into the latter category for me. 

Back in the mid-00s, I used to watch Veronica Mars every week with my wife; a few years later, I rewatched the whole series with my daughter. (I was always intent on finding shows with strong female leads for her, and Veronica was the logical next step once we finished seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer). And I was introduced to the song through its use as the show's theme song (in an abbreviated version); indeed, I don't think I heard the full-length album version until some time later. So it's impossible for me to hear "We Used To Be Friends" without thinking of it as "that Veronica Mars theme song"--lyrically, it's pretty much a perfect fit. Fortunately, I have fond memories of the show, so it doesn't detract at all; to the contrary, there are probably a number of Dandies tunes I prefer purely on the musical merits, yet the visualizations that invariably kick in when I hear this one give it a little jolt.

Live on Conan 2003:

Veronica Mars opening credits: