Poor choices for ad jingles
 

I just pulled this out of Time Magazine (no link, it's behind a subscription login):
I love stuff like this. I know I've noticed other poor choices in the past, but I can't recall any at the moment. Anyone have any additions?

I love RHH.

Of course, who can forget Reagan using "Born in the USA" as his campaign theme song. Did he bother listening to the lyrics of that one?

I saw this one on the air and cracked up... These kind of weird choices always make me wonder if the account executive ever listened to the song...

Did Spingsteen let him use the song? That doesn't sound right. I know other artists have flipped when their songs were used illegally... politicians have to pay a license fee and/or get permission to use music just like anyone else.

There was a car commercial that used Bohemian Like You by the Dandy Warhols.
The commercial just used the first line "You've got a great car" but omitted the second line "Yeah, what's wrong with it today?"

Oh, if we're going to get into politics... how about George W. Bush using "Cat in the Cradle", or (I think) the mayor of Allentown honoring Billy Joel for writing Allentown?

hehe good thread Red (w00t I'm a poet and didn't know it!) :p


I can't think of any right now.. I need to start writing them down as there are several I see each night.

I think it was used at rallies and such, but not in paid adverstising

Mazda used another Reverend Horton Heat song several years back. It was called "Big Red Rocket of Love", which is about a car, but clearly is a euphimism for a dick

I don't watch enough tv to add to the list, but I remember the first time I saw the Royal Caribbean Cruise ads with Iggy Pop in the background, that amused me to no end.

They have to pay for rallies as well. This requires a public performance fee. You can't legally just play any piece of music you want at a public gathering.


Largely this is ignored by the rights holders in the instances of weddings and such, but when it is a political party on the campaign trail they are generally either pay or the use of the song is given as a donation.

My current head-basher is the O'Jays' Love Train for Coors Light. That's a sin.

I think the execs just listen to the hook and/or the chorus. If is sounds... related, they'll use it.

i do think trying it in the ear is worth a shot, let's go on a cruise...

how about the stones Windows 95 campaign
Start It Up was played, gracefully omitting the "you make a grown man cry" lines
(wow, i got sick of that song.)

H-P using the KINKS "Picture Book", kind of falls into this I guess.

Although it's a great song and the comercial is cool as hell, the song is about taking pornographic pictures of loved ones and masturbating to them when you are old.

At least that was what I always was told, and the lyrics can lend themselves that way.

Ooh, how about Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" for the NBA playoffs a year (or two) back? Yeah, good work. Let's get retarded in here, let's get stoned, let's get stupid.

Didn't Marilyn Manson do a promo for football or something?? I'm still wondering if it was premier of the GFL or something (Goth Football League)

kadath - hell bent?

black eyed peas - not that they are master songwirters, but are they willing to change any lyric for any reason? (don't funk -> don't mess)

back to the topic with a couple obvious ones...
fortunate son has been used in patriotic wrangler ads
pink moon (suicide?) for volkswagon

worst taste ever would be a car advert with the song "take my breath away" playing in an ad break during a documentary on the Hillsborough Disaster

(if youre not familiar with that, police actions directly caused the death by suffocation and crushing of around 100 soccer fans at Hillsborough Soccer Stadium - the police basically forced too many people into a stand causing many people to be trampled and crushed to death. The Manic Street Preachers song South Yorkshire Mass Murder talks about the role of the South Yorkshire Police - "take my breath away" rather tasteless for obvious reasons)

bands like Modest Mouse, Jet and Polyphonic Spree all got serious exposure from ads

Ah, I remember the one I was thinking of: Chumbawamba's song "Pass it Along" was adopted by General Motors. If you only know Tubthumping by Chumbawamba, the group is more anarchastic-punk than pop. The lyrics themselves aren't the inappropriate part...
...but the funny part is how they used the money.

the idea of a mass production car company using the reference "Brave New World" in an advert just takes irony that one step too far, really.

m.i.a.'s song that mentions a bmw is used in a honda commercial!
i think the song is galang

Psychic TV's "Roman P." with its uplifting chorus ("Are you free? Are you really free? Are you really really really really really free") was used in a Volkswagen commercial in the '90s.
The song is about Roman Polanski and the rape that caused him to flee America, and also includes lines about Sharon Tate's murder by the Manson Family.

One that sticks out to me wasn't a song used but the title of the song. Back when Nirvana was breaking out with "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The Teen Spirit deodorant folks had commercials that had teen girls saying shit like "Do you know what smells like teen spirit?". Then they realized that the song was a complete slam on them and they pulled it.

"Dust in the Wind" by Kansas is in a Subaru ad:
"All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see... don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky, it slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy..."

What kind of an ad jingle is THAT?!

Also, the Bob Dylan Victoria's Secret commericals to his song "Lovesick" ... it gave my brain weird sensations as I saw the beautiful women moving their bodies as Bob Dylan stared at me.

HP using the Cure's Picture of You. I downloaded that song from hearing it on the commercial, then realized this is NOT a happy song.

when is The Cure <B>ever</B> happy?? ;)

I think it was a Huyndai commercial that used Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick. "Your Sperm's in the gutter, your love's in the sink." I think I will sit this one out, as a matter of fact.
// drives a Huyndai

Phillips, using the Beatles - Getting Better All the Time and cutting it at the very last beat before John says "Can't get no worse." They might as well have not bothered, I hear it anyway.

circuit city uses the cars' "just what i needed," omitting "i don't mind you coming here, wasting all my time."

kentucky fried chicken has adopted "sweet home alabama." maybe they think it's close enough.