Do the Pogues drive subarus? (Music in ads = selling out?)

[kmurray105]

but wouldn't be a fine feather in your cap if ALL the car companies had a commercial featuring Pogues tunes?

[philipchevron]

but wouldn't be a fine feather in your cap if ALL the car companies had a commercial featuring Pogues tunes?

Dunno. Will they throw in driving lessons?

[DzM]

[T]he US Subaru commercial. [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2sV8PRK9hs

I've been giving this some thought. "What the hell were they thinking?" kinda thought. I have a hypothesis about why this song was matched with this commercial.

The visuals tell a story. There's a narrative. Hockey Mom has three boys. She has to drive them around. They're a big portion of the team, AND are her little darlings, AND spend a lot of time in the vehicle. This means they need room, and need to be safe, and can be comfortable for long stretches of time & road. OK, there's the narrative of the commercial. Boiled down a bit more we have three boys.

So what's the connection? One of the verses of IISFFGWG: "It's coming up three, boys; Keeps coming up three, boys."

"Perfect!" some creative director shouted without paying any attention at all to any other part of the song. "See? The narrative is about three boys being driven around. The song is about three boys! It's gold! Do it!"

And then they (whoever does the remixing/slicing/editing for commercial tracks) cut that verse out of the audio used in the actual ad. What they ended up with is this (italicized is the content they edited out):

If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others

Let them go, boys
Let them go, boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
Then no corpse can lie upon me

It's coming up three, boys
Keeps coming up three, boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

I still believe that Cadillac leaving "and a lust for vomit" in their ad was a stranger choice.

[James]

[T]he US Subaru commercial. [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2sV8PRK9hs

I've been giving this some thought. "What the hell were they thinking?" kinda thought. I have a hypothesis about why this song was matched with this commercial.

It looks like someone left the TV on mute whilst I was playing records.

[philipchevron]

[T]he US Subaru commercial. [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2sV8PRK9hs

I've been giving this some thought. "What the hell were they thinking?" kinda thought. I have a hypothesis about why this song was matched with this commercial.

The visuals tell a story. There's a narrative. Hockey Mom has three boys. She has to drive them around. They're a big portion of the team, AND are her little darlings, AND spend a lot of time in the vehicle. This means they need room, and need to be safe, and can be comfortable for long stretches of time & road. OK, there's the narrative of the commercial. Boiled down a bit more we have three boys.

So what's the connection? One of the verses of IISFFGWG: "It's coming up three, boys; Keeps coming up three, boys."

"Perfect!" some creative director shouted without paying any attention at all to any other part of the song. "See? The narrative is about three boys being driven around. The song is about three boys! It's gold! Do it!"

And then they (whoever does the remixing/slicing/editing for commercial tracks) cut that verse out of the audio used in the actual ad. What they ended up with is this (italicized is the content they edited out):

If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others

Let them go, boys
Let them go, boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
Then no corpse can lie upon me

It's coming up three, boys
Keeps coming up three, boys
Let them go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

If I should fall from grace with God
Where no doctor can relieve me
If I'm buried 'neath the sod
But the angels won't receive me

Let me go, boys
Let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud
Where the rivers all run dry

I still believe that Cadillac leaving "and a lust for vomit" in their ad was a stranger choice.

Yes. All very true. But then, today's Mad Men are not interested in checking out the lyrics and nor, they wager, are their target groups. What they're selling here is Association - the Pogues themselves may have limited resonance in the USA but the Pogues' music, with its faintly illicit promise of freedom from family obligations and financial ties, of a connection to a rebel time way beyond the tears of Glenn Beck and the creepiness of Christine O'Donnell, certainly does not. The Pogues have, believe it or not, morphed into The American Dream. Less dramatically, it's that "Carnivalesque" quality the academics like to interrogate.

I don't think it's presuming too much to suggest that the only lyrics anyone "hears" in this commercial are:

This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others

[Fr. McGreer]

[T]he US Subaru commercial. [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2sV8PRK9hs

I've been giving this some thought. "What the hell were they thinking?" kinda thought. I have a hypothesis about why this song was matched with this commercial.

It looks like someone left the TV on mute whilst I was playing records.

That's exactly what i thought! Usually you would hear some of the audio from the hockey games, cheering for instance, mixed in over the soundtrack and maybe the boys shouting in the back of the car. It's very disjointed.

[DzM]

Yes. All very true. But then, today's Mad Men are not interested in checking out the lyrics and nor, they wager, are their target groups. What they're selling here is Association - the Pogues themselves may have limited resonance in the USA but the Pogues' music, with its faintly illicit promise of freedom from family obligations and financial ties, of a connection to a rebel time way beyond the tears of Glenn Beck and the creepiness of Christine O'Donnell, certainly does not. The Pogues have, believe it or not, morphed into The American Dream. Less dramatically, it's that "Carnivalesque" quality the academics like to interrogate.

Hmm. We'll likely never know the truth. I suspect, though, that you may be reading more into it than those modern Mad Men have. I'd bet real money that a Creative Director gave a Music Editor (read "someone that has a big iPod with a lot of 'eclectic' music on it and a big database that attaches lots and lots of keywords to lots and lots of tracks") instructions like this:

Soundtrack must be

• fast-paced (implying hectic activity)
• eclectic/quirky
• have "indy" cred
• perhaps have accordion in it, but not be "folky" or "polka-y," something like "The Office" theme
• bonus if it clearly mentions "boys" as that ties into the narrative

I'd further guess that Gogol Bordello tracks were considered but ultimately rejected due to Hutz's accent upsetting focus groups and the music being too "hard." Likewise with the various "Celtic Rock" groups out there today - Black 47, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, etc.

I don't think it's presuming too much to suggest that the only lyrics anyone "hears" in this commercial are:

This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others

If I close my eyes and pretend I've not heard this before then the words that seem to jump out are the chorus ("let me go, boys" and "let them go, boys") and the verse you highlight. The first verse seems mostly "something something God something doctor relieve something something angels something."

If I were to be extra cynical I'd say that Subaru is actually trying to appeal to the conservative concerns of the Tea Party set with this ad. They're not being crass about it, but the images are all shot to evoke "small town surroundings," hockey moms, non-"coastal elitism". The verse that stands out in the audio is appeals to the "this is our land, it belongs to us and our kids, take it back" tone that the Tea Party is loving so much. In a sense it reminds me of the conservative misuse of This Land is Your Land by W. Guthrie, or Born in the USA by B. Springsteen. Where one line or stanza/verse is cherry-picked and the song is adopted without listening to (or being concerned by) that overall meaning of the piece.


Rambling unfounded speculation is fun.

[philipchevron]

If I were to be extra cynical I'd say that Subaru is actually trying to appeal to the conservative concerns of the Tea Party set with this ad. They're not being crass about it, but the images are all shot to evoke "small town surroundings," hockey moms, non-"coastal elitism". The verse that stands out in the audio is appeals to the "this is our land, it belongs to us and our kids, take it back" tone that the Tea Party is loving so much.

Well, that's kind of what I was getting at, hence my sarky note that the Pogues had morphed into The American Dream.

[Clash Cadillac]

fast-paced (implying hectic activity)

My take on it was simply that. A fast paced song that represented the hectic activity of a family that would benefit from a Subaru. Also, selection of a song that appeals to a certain age group which may remind them of their youth.

[phro37]

an (ehem) "irish band" selling japanese cars for the american dream. gotta love it

[phro37]

I don't think it's presuming too much to suggest that the only lyrics anyone "hears" in this commercial are:

This land was always ours
Was the proud land of our fathers
It belongs to us and them
Not to any of the others

i didn't realize until you said it that i noticed the exact same thing. of course i heard the high hat hit when the kids were falling down and other "synchronicities." it just doesn't fit. two of my favorite things just don't mix well. unless i'm behind the wheel and the music's in the stereo of course.

[mferinpa]

LOVE the ad! Any great music on an ad is fine with me. But my question is..... Would Shane be driving?

[phro37]

LOVE the ad! Any great music on an ad is fine with me. But my question is..... Would Shane be driving?

maybe on that "closed course" they always refer to at the bottom of the ad. not sure if he'd be the "professional driver" one would wanna see on the streets, though :p (also, dzm, i'm still waiting for a "tongue sticking out" smiley! until then i think i'll need to improvise...

[yuma510]

I think it is an absolute disgrace that this or any pogues song was used in an advertisement.
I am from Ireland, and I rate Mcgowan the same as I would Yeats!

[DzM]

I think it is an absolute disgrace that this or any pogues song was used in an advertisement.
I am from Ireland, and I rate Mcgowan the same as I would Yeats!

If it makes you feel any better it's unlikely that Shane or anyone else in the band had anything to do with this (or the prior use of a Pogues song in a Cadillac ad). And the Pogues are (probably) getting licensing fees for its use. Surely you don't begrudge the Pogues making a living from their work?