Fictional Character’s Clock Radio Playlist?

February 4, 2019 5:44 AM

Groundhog Day and certain recent Netflix releases have me wanting to fine-tune my Spotify alarm playlist. I want to copy the nice people on the TV and what they woke up to; this should either be jarring enough to actually make me wake up or make me smile as I hit snooze.

What songs do people on the big or little screen wake up to? Specifically those who keep waking up to the same song, who are resetting their lives to the same point over and over or have just settled into a routine that works for them. What is their trigger song, what reminds them that it’s all starting again from square one?

I’m not despairing of my daily routine as much as this may sound. Existential crises help me get up and out the door, so I want to borrow one from Phil or someone else.

posted by RainyJay to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

In Happy Death Day, the character wakes up to her ringtone, which is this song. My friend liked it so much she made it her ringtone.
posted by gideonfrog at 6:03 AM on February 4, 2019

Well there's 9 to 5 which begins the movie, although I don't think a character in the movie woke up to that song because it would have been a bit of lampshading.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:16 AM on February 4, 2019

In Room 1408, the John Cusack character is taunted by an alarm clock radio that plays The Carpenters - We've Only Just Begun. This is the only decent example scene I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75wDuEhmVZY

I can't remember whether he actually "woke up" to the song or not. I remember the song playing multiple times from the clock radio during his stay in the haunted room, and it reminded me of "I Got You Babe" from Groundhog Day -- feel-good pop that gains a trickster/menacing quality over repeated listens from a tiny clock speaker. Of course, the song in Room 1408 is futzed-with to make it sound "warped" or something.
posted by mean square error at 6:21 AM on February 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Back in Time by Huey Lewis and the News
posted by stefnet at 7:03 AM on February 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

There's always Rogelio de la Vega's wake-up song from Jane the Virgin. (Full version available here.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:54 AM on February 4, 2019

I am not on any screens, but I do love waking up to Make Your Own Kind of Music by Mama Cass.
posted by brookeb at 10:17 AM on February 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

And there's always the opening from All That Jazz.
posted by brookeb at 10:19 AM on February 4, 2019

It's not an alarm clock situation, but Harry Nilsson's Gotta Get Up is used to similar effect -- a lot -- in Netflix's Russian Doll. More on the song.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 1:43 PM on February 4, 2019

The (very quickly cancelled) tv show That Was Then used Do It Again by The Kinks to repeatedly carry the protagonist back in time.
posted by Champagne Supernova at 2:05 PM on February 4, 2019

PeeWee's Big Adventure - Breakfast Machine - Danny Elfman
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:42 PM on February 4, 2019

Supernatural's homage to Groundhog Day uses Asia's Heat of the Moment as the wakeup song.
posted by snaw at 4:10 AM on February 5, 2019 [2 favorites]