"Can't You See" for GM cars? Ad agencies have gone nuts, haven't they?

[Bossy Monkey]

It's just the music, just like KFC just uses the music from "Sweet Home Alabama." Apparently, our corporate masters have decided that we like the sound of Southern rock from the '70s, but lyrics are scary. For instance:
Can't you see
Can't you see
What that woman
's been doin' to me?

Huh? Makes ME want to run out and get a car! Similarly, Verizon (I think; wouldn't it be a shame if all that money these guys are spending wasn't locking their company name in my brain like they want?) has Michael McDonald humming/ scatsinging "Ooh Child," presumably to convey the pleasing melody without that buzzkill "Things are going to get easier" stuff. I guess they test these ads on focus groups and get a positive response but it just seems nuts to me. Why not just use songs with an upbeat message to begin with? (I appreciate that "things are going to get easier" is upbeat in a sense, but it also implies that things suck now.) Or, I dunno, maybe write their own damn jingles.

I know, I know, utterly inconsequential. Just. really. odd.

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. If those who chose the songs listened to the lyrics

we wouldn't hear "Blitzkrieg Bop" at ball games.

[seemunkee]

3. Or "Lust for Life" for Celebrity cruises

That one cracks me up

Here comes johnny yen again
With the liquor and drugs
And the flesh machine
Hes gonna do another strip tease.
Hey man, whered ya get that lotion?
Ive been hurting since Ive bought the gimmick
About something called love
Yeah, something called love.
Well, thats like hypnotizing chickens.

Well, Im just a modern guy
Of course, Ive had it in the ear before.
I have a lust for life
cause of a lust for life.

Im worth a million in prizes
With my torture film
Drive a gto
Wear a uniform
All on a government loan.
Im worth a million in prizes
Yeah, Im through with sleeping on the sidewalk
No more beating my brains
No more beating my brains
With liquor and drugs
With liquor and drugs.

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. 'Lust for Life' has that beat

Plus the title lyric — which I doubt many people in Celebrity Cruises' demographic would even understand the way it's sung.

Same with "Blitzkrieg Bop" — it's the "Hey, ho! Let's go!" bit that makes it popular in sports venues. But check the rest of the lyrics:

They're forming in a straight line
They're going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They're piling in the back seats
They're generating steam heat
Pulsatin' to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Hey, ho, let's go
Shoot 'em in the back now
What they want, I don't know
They're all revved up and ready to go

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. This isn't exactly new...

over the past five or six years, I remember an ad for Wrangler jeans that used 'Fortunate Son' by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Or part of it. The only bit of the vocal you heard was 'Some people are born made to wave the flag, ooh they're red white and blue' (over images of American flags snapping in the wind and impossibly goodlooking rednecks in Wranglers dancing).

Then there was the Target commercial that used 'Beautiful World' by Devo...you heard 'It's a beautiful world/For you', but you DON'T HEAR the bit at the end where he says 'It's not for me'.

And the Carnival Cruise commercials with Iggy Pop's 'Lust For Life' (you hear 'I've got a lust for life', but not 'I'm through sleeping on the sidewalk/No more beating my brains/with liquor and drugs...'etc).

Guess nopw they're getting rid of the lyrics altogether.

[Bossy Monkey]

5. Right. Fortunate Son made me completely insane. I think they abandoned it

pretty quickly in favor of Steve Miller. But I guess you're right that stripping the song down to just background music is less insane than using the actual lyrics of a song that has nothing to do with the message you're attempting to convey. I guess my child-mind just rebels against the commoditization (hey, I made up a word!) of popular music, even when the part of my brain with actual working brain cells knows perfectly well that it was always a commodity all along. Anyway, I'm just relatively grateful when they don't pick on my favorite artists/ songs.

[Monk06]

6. When Capital bought the CCR catalogue...............

Their lawyers prevented Tom Fogerty from performing
any Creedance songs anytime, anywhere, forever.

Turns out Capital bought the CCR lyrics to keep
Fortunate Son off the radio because it became
an anti war anthem.

Twenty years later they turned it into an advertising
jingle.

[6000eliot]

7. I always found it strange that a company with Kentucky in its name

would use "Sweet Home Alabama" as a theme song.