David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Dec. 7, 2004

Write your own stupid jingles and leave rock alone

Rock and roll shouldn't waste its time selling Cadillacs. Or at-home stock trading. Or shoes. Or flower delivery. Why can't Madison Avenue just stick to penning its own annoying jingles? You know the type. They bang through your skull in a cruel cerebral infinite repeat.

A quality jingle (and by "quality" I mean insidious) will stick with you for days. You could be in the delivery room anxiously awaiting the birth of your child, arguably the most dramatic and awe-inspiring event in a human's life, when suddenly you find yourself mumbling, "I'd like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company." Hey! Drop the epidural and get a soda! Now that's good jingle writing (and by "good" I mean ... oh, never mind).

"Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce ..."

"Oh I wish I were an Oscar-Mayer wiener ..."

"Ask any mermaid you happen to see, What's the best tuna? Chicken of the Sea."

"Plop, plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is."

"Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."

It's obvious the jingle writers know what they're doing. Irritating ditties like those have been working their magic on us gullible consumers for decades, so why must advertisers raid rock and roll? I hesitate to label rock music as "sacred," but some of it is not too far off.

And it's not as though advertisers pick lame rock songs to sell their products. Would anyone care if "Oh Mickey you're so fine" was used to sell toilet paper? No, but they pick the good ones, the classics. I saw a TV ad for e-Trade that uses Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers" as its theme song, specifically the parts that mention a revolution -- "Look what's happening out in the streets / Got a revolution got to revolution / Hey now it's time for you and me / Got a revolution got to revolution."

Written during the Vietnam War, the song is about social upheaval, and it targets a polarizing president and an unpopular war. A revolution is exactly what a younger generation envisioned during those times, but something tells me their revolution didn't include stock transactions for less than $10 a trade. "Volunteers" is probably a bit naive lyrically, but it rang true in context of the early 1970s. Teenagers were being killed in a war they didn't understand, and they fought, as best they could, to affect change.

Day-trading was the least of their concerns.

Revolution is a popular theme in advertising's quest to sell inventory, all the while corrupting great songs. It goes back to the mid-1980s when The Beatles' "Revolution" was used in a Nike TV commercial. "You say you want a revolution / Well you know / We all want to change the world / You tell me that it's evolution / Well you know / We all want to change the world."

So a sneaker is part of a revolution? Uh, OK. I don't presume to know what was going through John Lennon's mind when he wrote that song, but I'm confident he was speaking of a revolution on a higher order than snazzy shoes.

I'm not anti-capitalism, not one bit. Nike and e-Trade and Cadillac and FTD have every right to make a buck in America. I just wish they'd exercise a little discretion. Some ideas are bad ideas. Using songs that have important and profound messages as commercial jingles is a bad idea.

Nike learned its lesson. After the "Revolution" ad came out, Nike was flooded with angry Beatles fans who felt the shoe company had cheapened the song and tarnished Lennon's legacy. There was so much backlash that Nike scrapped plans to use more Beatles songs in future ads. I dare say that's more in the spirit of the "Revolution" John wrote about.

The artists aren't blameless though. They write songs and then make deals, whether it be directly with advertisers or through record companies or song publishers. A performer who unleashes a song into the world had better be prepared for some unpleasantness. After all, it wasn't The Beatles who signed off on the "Revolution" ads, it was Michael Jackson. He owned the rights, but The Beatles ultimately made the decision to sell their rights. No one is blameless, and everyone is cashing in.

Except us fans. We're relegated to forever envision a boxy Cadillac every time we hear Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll."

"It's been a long time, been a long time / Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time."

Yes it has.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.