The News in Welsh
I've been thinking about Patti LuPone over at Restricted View, and I never think of Patti without thinking of Life Goes On, the TV series she starred in when I was growing up. Though the role was not officially a musical one, Patti did lead the cast in singing the theme song: "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da." It was bouncy and fun, and it was my introduction to the song. You won't hear it on the DVDs -- high licensing costs -- but you can hear a really bad recording of it here.
Recalling it got me thinking about other Beatles songs used as TV themes. In adolescence I was also a faithful viewer of The Wonder Years, but I never knew "With a Little Help from My Friends" was a Beatles song until I bought Sergeant Pepper's..., my very first Beatles album. The show used the Joe Cocker cover version (different cuts of it at different times; I remember it this way). Slow, soulful, Motown-y, it doesn't bear much resemblance to the bouncy original, so when I heard "Billy Shears" singing those familiar lyrics I nearly fell over. [MORE]
The only other example I can think of is Grace Under Fire, the blue-collar sitcom that starred standup Brett Butler and used Aretha Franklin's version of "Lady Madonna" as the theme song for the first few seasons -- until it got too expensive, I guess. And Google tells me Providence used this irritating version of "In My Life" -- again, until finances interfered. Are there others I'm forgetting?
As the portion of airtime devoted to the show itself has been shrinking, few sitcoms have the luxury of a lengthy theme song these days. So we may have seen the last of the Beatles-song-as TV-show-intro. But they're popping up in commercials all over the place! It seems almost quaint that the use of "Revolution" in a 1987 sneaker ad could have provoked an outcry. It was a simpler time. I will admit to being outraged by Chase's recent use of "All You Need Is Love" in a credit-card ad, but for the most part I kind of enjoy hearing Beatles songs (and fun pop songs in general) popping up during commercial breaks. I particularly dig the impressionistic "Hello, Goodbye" by Sophia Shorai that Target is using in all its ads (like this one), and the "good buy" pun doesn't really bother me, I guess because "Hello Goodbye" always sounded like a jingle to begin with. What do you think about all this? Is there a song/product pairing you'd like to see, or dread seeing? Could anything be worse than "All You Need Is Love" selling a credit card? I'm holding out for the day Kellogg's makes a Corn Flakes spot using "Good Morning, Good Morning." Then we will have come full circle indeed.
Recalling it got me thinking about other Beatles songs used as TV themes. In adolescence I was also a faithful viewer of The Wonder Years, but I never knew "With a Little Help from My Friends" was a Beatles song until I bought Sergeant Pepper's..., my very first Beatles album. The show used the Joe Cocker cover version (different cuts of it at different times; I remember it this way). Slow, soulful, Motown-y, it doesn't bear much resemblance to the bouncy original, so when I heard "Billy Shears" singing those familiar lyrics I nearly fell over. [MORE]
The only other example I can think of is Grace Under Fire, the blue-collar sitcom that starred standup Brett Butler and used Aretha Franklin's version of "Lady Madonna" as the theme song for the first few seasons -- until it got too expensive, I guess. And Google tells me Providence used this irritating version of "In My Life" -- again, until finances interfered. Are there others I'm forgetting?
As the portion of airtime devoted to the show itself has been shrinking, few sitcoms have the luxury of a lengthy theme song these days. So we may have seen the last of the Beatles-song-as TV-show-intro. But they're popping up in commercials all over the place! It seems almost quaint that the use of "Revolution" in a 1987 sneaker ad could have provoked an outcry. It was a simpler time. I will admit to being outraged by Chase's recent use of "All You Need Is Love" in a credit-card ad, but for the most part I kind of enjoy hearing Beatles songs (and fun pop songs in general) popping up during commercial breaks. I particularly dig the impressionistic "Hello, Goodbye" by Sophia Shorai that Target is using in all its ads (like this one), and the "good buy" pun doesn't really bother me, I guess because "Hello Goodbye" always sounded like a jingle to begin with. What do you think about all this? Is there a song/product pairing you'd like to see, or dread seeing? Could anything be worse than "All You Need Is Love" selling a credit card? I'm holding out for the day Kellogg's makes a Corn Flakes spot using "Good Morning, Good Morning." Then we will have come full circle indeed.