The Medusa Fora

well fuckall! my two favorite bands ever are the ramones & the pogues. i just got done reading "i slept with joey ramone" written by his brother mickey leigh, in which he describes how his brother's band made a (relative) windfall from 'blitzkriek bop' ...(the "hey ho let's go" song) being used in an american commercial...more $$ in one fell swoop than all the hard touring & dwindling record sales were making the band at the time. i think it was also a car commercial. i hope the pogues made a killing. an interviewer once asked peter townsend what's the best song you ever wrote. he said "pinball wizard". when asked why it was " 'cause that's the one that made me the most money!". neil young, who i also adore, wrote a song once that said "ain't singin' for pepsi, ain't singin' for coke, ain't singin' for miller, they make me look like a joke". that song was from a very mediocre LP he put out in the '80s. i bet he wished that record sold 3 million copies like 'harvest' did. but it didn't. we're all whores in one way or another, aren't we?

Selling out or not is anyone's opinion...
Hearing the Pogues on the TV or radio always puts a smile on my face and makes my day, because it's a rare thing (for Europe at least) and I always have to listen to some computer produced tune with a woman/man making strange noises instead of singing...
Well, the commercial and the song really don't go together, but just close your eyes and enjoy the music...

Surelly you have only sold out if you had some sort of stance on it in the first place? Its bit like everyone slagging John Lydon off for doing butter adverts (adverts by the way that A) advertised british products and B) financed the recent PIL tour that nobody would pay for) when in actual fact at no point had he ever made a stance against such things. In fact he argued for the Pistols to go on Top of the Pops were all the other punk bands were being standofish about it

Selling out is when you change your music and sacrifice your integrity to be sold to the masses. However, if Madison Avenue were to accept your material, as-is, I do not think that is selling out. It would be foolish not to accept an easy pay day on material you poured your heart and soul into.

darrencp22 wrote:Selling out is when you change your music and sacrifice your integrity to be sold to the masses. However, if Madison Avenue were to accept your material, as-is, I do not think that is selling out. It would be foolish not to accept an easy pay day on material you poured your heart and soul into.

Well wait, if i'm not mistaken, don't most of the Pogues not drive? Sellouts! Hypocrits!

I for one absolutely love the cadillac advert. Great production quality. Fantastic song. And the milk-through-the-nose hysterical laughter I got from them pairing up "a lust for vomit" with their luxury SUV. Maybe I'll buy me a totalled caddy and drive it around with plastic vomit glued to the driver's door

As for "selling out"... The whole notion of intellectual property seems to be going the way of the dodo anyway... The Pogues should take the money whenever they can with an "F yez all".

after seeing that commercial, I would probably go out and buy the song (if I didn't already have it), not the car!

DzM wrote:

yuma510 wrote: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?

I'd be interested to hear if they approve though ... certainly the ad folks had never read the lyrics

Can anyone tell me the meaning of "coming up threes, boys"? reference to crapping out? three strikes and you are out? going down for the third time?

worthydog wrote:Can anyone tell me the meaning of "coming up threes, boys"? reference to crapping out? three strikes and you are out? going down for the third time?

I believe it is that or referencing the Irish tricolor.

worthydog wrote:Can anyone tell me the meaning of "coming up threes, boys"? reference to crapping out? three strikes and you are out? going down for the third time?

The great Parting Glass site offers this: "According to sailing legend, a man overboard would come to the surface three times before succumbing and drowning."
But what it can mean in connection with subarus I better don't imagine...

Zuzana wrote:

worthydog wrote:Can anyone tell me the meaning of "coming up threes, boys"? reference to crapping out? three strikes and you are out? going down for the third time?

The great Parting Glass site offers this: "According to sailing legend, a man overboard would come to the surface three times before succumbing and drowning."
But what it can mean in connection with subarus I better don't imagine...

Nothing to do with the three boys in the car?????

You do that, you go to the box, you know. Two minutes, by yourself, you know and you feel shame, you know. And then you get free Denis Lemieux

Just some words of advice for the three young hockey players from Slapshot

Three boys in green jerseys, with red hair and typical Irish physiognomies, playing hockey (which is about as close to hurling as you get in America), falling over themselves, brawling with other kids, being unceremoniously removed from the 'rink' by the 'ref,' and thrown in the 'penalty box,' upon getting out, passed out and piled in the back of a car, all the while the Pogues playing in the background . . . some sort of connection here I can't quite put my finger on.

They've been playing the HELL out of that commercial on the Cooking Channel, which my GF watches incessantly. And it always makes me happy, because I know that my favorite band is getting paid for it!