Commercial Music (Read on to discover this title is a double-pun!)

I used to love “Just What I Needed” by the Cars, but now I can’t hear it without picturing a Toyotathon or one of the blue-shirts at Best Buy pointing at the flatscreen on a Kenmore fridge.

Has this happened to you, too? Has a once beloved song been drained empty by television commercials?

I remember, as a youngster, hearing the splashes of rich white people cannonballing into my neighborhood’s country club pool (I’m a white guy too, but you know what I’m saying). The kids would laugh, the silver-haired business dads would grunt, their blonde wives would squirt SPF 5 and the lifeguard would blow his whistle at the troublemakers. Streaming under it all was the sound of a cheap radio, hissing from the snack bar. Tuned to the now-defunct WHSL, it would broadcast “the hits of today and the classics we love” or something, which meant the turf between Huey Lewis and the Rolling Stones. Van Halen might have been a bit too bristly for this crowd. Anyway, believe it or not I have a vivid memory of first hearing the Who’s “I Can See For Miles” over that very FM station by the pool. The verse of the song wasn’t familiar to me, so it didn’t particularly grab my attention. When the chorus kicked in, however, I knew that song! I chimed in: “I can drive for miles and miles! I can drive for miles and miles!”

But then I stopped myself. Something was off. Those were the words I surely knew, but the band on the radio wasn’t singing that. Instead of “I can drive for miles,” the singer said “I can see for miles.” Weird. Why?

I asked my mom, who did her best to explain that this was the real version of the song that the Firestone tire company based their jingle on. It was in that commercial I always saw on TV at home. All the sudden, the Who’s version felt real lame to me, like the corny ad it now was. I never grew to like that song. Firestone ruined it. Today, every time “I Can See For Miles” streams through the radio, I can only picture a new set of Hi-Tread Potenza Pole Positions on the shiny rims of some ol’ GTO as it burns rubber into the sunset. And a jackass is behind the wheel.

Saddest thing is, that’s a song I might otherwise love.

As hard as I’ve tried, I can’t remove the commercial associations from these adopted songs. I don’t know what band does that song in the Progressive Insurance commercials, nor would I be a fan anyway, but I do remember hearing it on the radio earlier on. I can just imagine how dead that song must be to an actual fan of the band that penned it. It’s now on TV every seven minutes.

Lately I’ve noticed more and more incidences of hit songs (or could-have-been-hit songs) in advertisements and TV show intros. When I first heard the Dell commercial tracked by the 13th Floor Elevators’ “Won’t You Miss Me?,” I was really put off. I didn’t want to hate that song. I had always loved it. I didn’t want it attached to a brand. Was it, inadvertently, a test to separate true fans from the unworthy? “Ya know, if you really loved that 13th Floor Elevators song as much as you say, you wouldn’t let the Dell Corporation ruin any of its sweetness. Your will is quite weak.”

But I don’t know. It’s like having a crush on the hottest girl in school, only to find out she has irritable bowel syndrome and can’t go an hour without storming her diaper. Yes, she wears diapers too.

Know what I mean? It’s that stigma that latches on forevermore until something can, somehow, remove it. Would I hate the Shins any less if I hadn’t seen Garden State? Can I ever remove Zack Braff’s spikey nose from their plain-bagel sound? Yes, I already thought the Shins to be wholly overrated, but Braff’s generic movie seemed like a commercial for that band. They brought one-another down even further.

But back to the issue of enjoyable songs being tarnished by popular business, it kinda bugs me that a songwriter would allow their work to be woven into a brand name. Sure, I know it’s not as easy as that (sometimes the record label is the dealer, while the songwriter has no control over the fate of his/her music), but still, it kills the song. “Just What I Needed” will never again be that once-catchy summer song by the Cars. It’s now a zombie feeding on Dominoes Pizza at Office Max.

The trend of catchy, connective music to track advertisements is catching on in creative marketing departments the world over. I wonder what song will be drained next. Stephen Malkmus had a close call with that Sears ad. Let's not even mention Pepsi and the Rolling Stones.