When my husband and I were driving back to Riverside on Monday night from doing restaurant review in San Bernardino (look for it in the April 25 issue of The Guide!), "Runaway Train," the 1993 song by Soul Asylum came on 93.1 FM.

"Has there ever been a greater disconnect between a movie and a song with the same title?" he asked. He was, of course, referring to the 1985 Jon Voight-Eric Roberts movie about a literal runaway train.

After all, it's easy to find songs and movies with the same title that are connected.

The Dire Straits song "Romeo and Juliet" has lyrics that come off as a conversation between the immortally mortal lovers.

And movie soundtracks are full of songs named for the movies. "Once." "Animal House." "Men in Black." "Wild Wild West." "Rock 'n' Roll High School."

Am I naming movies or songs? Yes!

So we challenged ourselves to find movies and songs with the same name but very different stories.

"Shock Treatment": The song by the Ramones is about electroshock therapy; the 1981 movie is a sequel to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and also features a song called "Shock Treatment."

"Time After Time": The 1984 Cyndi Lauper song, which has been covered numerous times, is a wistful song from a woman to her lover, possibly dead or merely no longer in the picture. The 1979 movie is about H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) following a time-traveling Jack the Ripper (David Warner) to "modern-day" San Francisco.

"Iron Man": In spite of its use in the commercials, the early '70s song by Black Sabbath is NOT about the comic-book hero. According to Wikipedia:

The song is about a person who travels into the future and witnesses the apocalypse. On his way back, he gets caught in a magnetic field and is turned to iron. When he tries to warn the world about the apocalypse, they cannot hear him for he is made of iron. The people shun him, and as his revenge he kills them all. He then realizes that he is the cause of the apocalypse.

The upcoming "Iron Man" movie is based on the Marvel Comics superhero. In a twist of synergy, the character's origins were later rewritten to include "Iron Man," the song, as the source of the character's name.

Do you have more to add to the list? Share, share!!!

Leave a comment

Name: (required)

Email: (required; will not be displayed)

URL:  (optional)

Remember personal info?

Comment: (you may use basic HTML tags for style)

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.

Note: You will need to re-enter the captcha field after previewing