PR 101

I work from a home office.

That’s good because it cuts way down on costs, my commute takes about 30 seconds, and I don’t have to share the bathroom with anyone other than my smarter half. It’s bad because there are way too many distractions in my house.

One of those is the television. I am a news junkie, so I flip on the television on during the day to see what’s happening in the world. I haven’t been a working reporter for almost a decade, but I am still hooked on current events.

So the other day I turn on the tube only to see a commercial for denture adhesive. Three women of a certain age were singing about the joys of this adhesive to the tune of the Everly Brothers “Bye Bye Love.”

My first thought was WTF?!?! I am sure Phil and Don Everly were not thinking about loose teeth when they were recorded the song in 1957.  (I was three-years-old when the song came out. My late older brother was big fan of the duo, so I heard it a lot.)

“Bye Bye Love” was one of those bouncy little pop ballads that were so prevalent in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Hearing that song made me realize that the industry I am in is co-opting my formative years. I don’t like it.

For those of you who are not Baby Boomers, I realize we get pretty boring rhapsodizing about how great things were 40-years-ago. But, we had to listen to my parents stories about their generation. Now it’s your turn to listen to us.

You have to remember how controversial rock was in the ‘50s and ‘60s. When Elvis appeared for the first time on Ed Sullivan, they only showed him from the waist up. It was thought way too scandalous to show his gyrations. Seems a little tame now when you think about Madonna kissing Brittany Spears or Adam Lambert going all bi-sexual on national television. That’s one of the things we love about it. It was considered untouchable by anybody but us damned hippie kids.

Abbie Hoffman - the man who predicted our music would be co-opted.

I don’t think Steppenwolf would have been allowed to play “Magic Carpet Ride” on broadcast television forty years ago. After all, whether it is actually true or not, we always assumed the song was about getting high. People sang about such things in the ‘60s.

So, I Google the song and discover Wendy’s used a version of it in a commercial. Well, I suppose that marriage of music and marketing kind of works. You know, munchies ….

In fact, that Google search turned up three pages on About.com of popular songs used in commercials. What used to be the anthems of rebellion are now background music for selling hamburgers and cars.

Excuse me, but I have to say it: Bummer Dude!

Well, the late Abbie Hoffman did predict this was going to happen – I think in his opus “Steal This Book.” (Which I did, but then someone stole from me. It’s what Hoffman wanted to happen, but I digress.) The point he made was that eventually society co-opts everything. Oh, well, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Although I have yet to hear any commercial using the lyrics from John Lennon’s song New York City:

Standing on the corner

Just me and Yoko Ono

We was waiting for Jerry to land

Up come a man with a guitar in his hand

Singing, “Have a marijuana if you can”

His name was David Peel

And we found that he was real

He sang, “The Pope smokes dope every day”

Up come a policeman shoved us up the street

Singing, “Power to the people today!”

So, maybe there are some corners that are still untouchable.