Using a sample doesn’t always mean you use it as it was originally intended to sound like. A good example of this comes from eighties electronic music pioneers Yello in their  song The Race from 1988. Yello are best know for their song Oh Yeah which is used in quite a lot of films, mostly in the eighties. The Race however is a good second, some of you may remember from the Max SkateBike commercial in 1989.

As the title suggests, the song is about (drag) racing, illustrated by a sample of a drag racer roaring by on the opening of the song. Somewhere half way through the song however, we hear a different engine roar. Or is it an engine? As it turns out, it’s a horn from the track Tiller Girls from 1978 film adaptation of the musical Cabaret. A sleazy, roaring horn sound in a musical number with drag queens becomes an engine roar of a drag racer. There has to be  some poetry in that.

Yello – The Race (extended version)

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