Bumper music is “a term used in the radio broadcasting industry to refer to short clips of music used to buffer transitions between programming elements. Bumper music is commonly employed when a syndicated program takes a break for local station identification or goes to commercial.”

Often you’ll see pop songs used to “bump” offbeat or curious news stories on cable news channels, many times the music isn’t so well chosen… well, we’re here to help. Below are five recent offbeat news stories complete with accompanying bumper music. Thank us later Producers.

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  Nudists seek clothing-optional voting: Residents of the clothing-optional Caliente Resorts in Land O’ Lakes, Fla., said they are lobbying to create the first clothing-optional U.S. polling place. Read more HERE / above photo from HERE.

  Listen: “Naked in the Rain” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

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  Grad Student Sentenced for Making Morphine-Laced Beer: A UC Santa Cruz graduate student has been sentenced to a drug diversion program for making a batch of morphine-laced beer. Chad Renzelman pleaded no contest to heroin possession, saying he used “a handful” of dried poppy pods to flavor a batch of home-made beer. Police found the batch of beer in his garage during the summer. Read more/photo from HERE.

  Listen: “Cure for Pain” by Morphine

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  Smart Kids Are More Likely to Become Drunks: Public health experts from the University of Glasgow were able to obtain the childhood mental ability scores of over 8,000 men and women in their 30s, and found — much to their surprise — the higher IQ, the higher the likelihood of developing a drinking problem. Read more HERE / photo from HERE.

  Listen: “Get Drunk And Be Somebody” by Toby Keith

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  Lightning strikes only once but kills 52 cows: Lightning struck only once - but 52 cows are dead at an Uruguayan ranch. The newspaper El Pais reports that the cows had pressed against a wire fence during a storm when the lightning bolt struck in the northern state of San Jose. Read more/photo from HERE.

  Listen: “Lightning Crashes” by Live

E-mail away message ends up on road sign: When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed. Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”. So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket. Read more/photo from HERE.

Listen: “Communication Breakdown” by Led Zeppelin

*above/front control room image from HERE.