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COMMERCIAL GROOVES Nostalgic Tracks From TV Adverts Musical themes are now a time-honoured and institutionalised adjunct to TV advertising, and often as not...

COMMERCIAL GROOVES


Nostalgic Tracks From TV Adverts

Musical themes are now a time-honoured and institutionalised adjunct to TV advertising, and often as not the music played works only syncretically on the listener and may have only a subliminal, rather than a direct connection with the product on offer.Thus, in the modern world of sound bites our ears are constantly assailed by tunes as far-ranging as Beethoven's 5th and La vie en rose, and all in the name of selling the most diverse range of goods and services. However, the vast back-catalogue of popular songs has proved a boon to advertisers and marketing strategists and tunes with catchy rhythms or humorous lyrics, or those which log instantly onto our nostalgic memory-cells, are particularly useful for homing in on mass-audiences, the sitting targets of our nightly soaps and other primetime screenings.

Our underlying emotions are what the advertisers are aiming at, and in the spheres of jazz and popular music it is primarily the rhythmic numbers, being the most easily recalled to mind, which are the most frequently favoured. Therefore, as Johnny Mercer and Harry Warren's "Jeepers Creepers" has already been suitably applied to the marketing of both cars and cosmetics and Jack Yellen and Milt Ager's "Happy Feet" to Clarks' shoes, Mama Don' Wan' No Peas An' Rice An' Coconut Oil now provides a rhythmically apposite accompaniment to the rustle of a chip-pan (albeit the ad fades Jimmy Rushing's vocal before the less suitable punchline 'Jus' a bottle o' brandy handy all the day!'). And currently, whilst anticipating even more in the future,we might easily cite many other examples in like vein. Tico Tico, for example (a foot-tapping Latin-American tongue-twister first heard in Esther Williams' 1943 film vehicle Bathing Beauty, and a contemporary hit for both Ethel Smith and the Andrews Sisters) is now applied, however obliquely, both to Sainsbury's Extra Legally and Whiskas cat food (Hold Tight, with its seafood reference and delivered by the irrepressible Fats Waller, also befits the latter item) and Teddy Bears' Picnic (that twee yet timeless 1930s-vintage staple of 'Children's Favourites') will strike a chord in viewers young and old, whether home-video fanatics or not.

Similarly, I Yi Yi Yi Yi (conjuring images of Latin-American diva Carmen Miranda and that famous hat with the bananas) sounds in tune with breakfast cereal and Tiger Rag (an Original Dixieland Jazz Band number from 1917 famously revived in 1931 by the Mills Brothers) is racy enough for a Vauxhall Astra, while Stompin' At The Savoy evokes the passe stylishness of pre-War cruise-ship ballrooms and In The Mood (the Glenn Miller Orchestra's 'most gargantuan' 1939 best-selling theme-tune) may yet, on account of its rarefied if unspecified nostalgia, be applied to other products apart from Radion Plus,Walkers Doritos and Anchor Butter.

In a broader sense, the more confidential, romantically inspired gems of popular song - the slower numbers - also provide good foil to advertising, particularly when sung by such revered and instantly remembered names as Ella, Marlene or Fred and a prime example of this phenomenon is Whispering Grass, a nostalgic old number made famous by The Inkspots (it was a US No.10 hit in 1940 for the world-renowned harmony quartet), which may on account of the intimacy it suggests serve to rekindle a market for the telephone, even though email is a generally cheaper, if more impersonal, option.

For voices from the past, quite apart from the personas of the stars themselves, instantly conjure personal memories to those old enough, or sufficiently long-in-the-tooth to make the connection, whereas younger, less knowing, victims may still be hooked by the unalloyed nostalgia of an old mono recording (however tidied by technology) to sit up and take notice. That music in this category has so far been utilised in TV advertising with a certain success is beyond question, although its extent might be difficult to quantify. But among those which must so far have made considerable impact are Let's Face The Music And Dance (with it's memorable opening line 'There may be trouble ahead'), Someone To Watch Over Me (this 1926- vintage George and Ira Gershwin classic hit from Oh, Kay! is perhaps more generally recalled by Ella's 1950s Gershwin Album version) and Falling In Love Again (first introduced by Dietrich in her 1930 film The Blue Angel) - all of which are plausibly suited by association to their respective subjects of financial services or healthcare. And whatever the subject, the original Trenet version of La mer invariably adds a nostalgic timbre which seems to predate this 1946 recording.

Peter Dempsey, 2004

Disc 1

Mama Don' Wan' No Peas An' Rice An' Coconut Oil (Crisp'n'Dry) (more info)
Performed by: Count Basie Orchestra
Composed by: Anonymous Jimmy Rushing
Recording date: 1938


1.   Mama Don' Wan' No Peas An' Rice An' Coconut Oil (Crisp'n'Dry) - 2:51


I Don't Want To Set the World On Fire (Burger King) (more info)
Composed by: Orville Hoppy Jones Eddie Seiler Eddie Durham
Ivory Deek Watson, tenor
Charlie Fuqua, baritone
Bill Kenny, tenor
Recording date: 1941


2.   I Don't Want To Set the World On Fire (Burger King) - 3:04


It's Only a Paper Moon (Galaxy) (more info)
Composed by: Harold Arlen
Ella Fitzgerald, vocals
Recording date: 1945


3.   It's Only a Paper Moon (Galaxy) - 2:37


La Mer (Audi A4) (more info)
Composed by: Charles Trenet
Recording date: 1946


4.   La Mer (Audi A4) - 3:22


Whispering Grass (BT) (more info)
Composed by: Doris Fisher
Recording date: 1940


5.   Whispering Grass (BT) - 2:43


Tico Tico (Sainsbury's Extra Legally, Whiskas Cat Food) (more info)
Composed by: Ervin M. Drake Zequinha de Abreu
Recording date: 1944


6.   Tico Tico (Sainsbury's Extra Legally Whiskas Cat Food) - 2:22


Teddy Bears' Picnic (Sony Camcorders) (more info)
Performed by: BBC Dance Orchestra
Composed by: John Bratton
Conducted by: Henry Hall
Val Rosing, vocals
Recording date: 1932


7.   Teddy Bears' Picnic (Sony Camcorders) - 2:57


Follow the Fleet: Let's Face the Music And Dance (Allied Dunbar) (more info)
Performed by: Johnny Green Orchestra
Composed by: Irving Berlin
Fred Astaire, vocals
Recording date: 1936


8.   Let's Face the Music And Dance (Allied Dunbar) - 2:32


Oh, Kay!: Someone To Watch Over Me (PPP Healthcare) (more info)
Composed by: George Gershwin
Ella Fitzgerald, vocals
Recording date: 1950


9.   Someone To Watch Over Me (PPP Healthcare) - 3:16


Stompin' At the Savoy (more info)
Composed by: Edgar Sampson Chick Webb
Benny Goodman, clarinet
Recording date: 1936


10.   Stompin' At the Savoy (P & O European Ferries) - 3:25


Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall (Woolworth's Ladybird Collection) (more info)
Composed by: Alan Roberts
Recording date: 1944


11.   Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall (Woolworth's Ladybird Collection) - 3:10


Boum! (PPP Healthcare) (more info)
Composed by: Charles Trenet
Recording date: 1938


12.   Boum! (PPP Healthcare) - 2:36


Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama) (Whiskas Cat Food) (more info)
Composed by: Leonard Ware Edward Robinson Willie Spottswood Leonard Kent Jerry Brandow
Thomas Fats Waller, vocals
Recording date: 1939


13.   Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama) (Whiskas Cat Food) - 2:18


Tiger Rag (Vauxhall Astra) (more info)
Composed by: Henry Ragas Larry Shields Eddie Edwards Nick La Rocca Larry Sbarbaro
Recording date: 1931


14.   Tiger Rag (Vauxhall Astra) - 1:53


I Yi Yi Yi Yi (I Like You Very Much) (Kellogg's Fruit'n'Fibre) (more info)
Composed by: Harry Warren
Carmen Miranda, vocals
Recording date: 1941


15.   I Yi Yi Yi Yi (I Like You Very Much) (Kellogg's Fruit'n'Fibre) - 2:17


La Vie En Rose (Volkswagen Polo, Delight) (more info)
Composed by: Louis Louiguy
Edith Piaf, vocals
Recording date: 1946


16.   La Vie En Rose (Volkswagen Polo Delight) - 3:28


Let's Do It! (Let's Fall In Love) (Cadbury's Cream Egg) (more info)
Composed by: Cole Porter
Rudy Wallee, vocals
Recording date: 1940


17.   Lets' Do It! (Let's Fall In Love) (Cadbury's Cream Egg) - 5:59


God Bless the Child (Volkswagen Passat) (more info)
Composed by: Arthur Herzog Jr.
Billie Holiday, vocals
Recording date: 1941


18.   God Bless the Child (Volkswagen Passat) - 2:56


Do I Worry? (Volvo C70) (more info)
Composed by: Bobby Worth Stanley Cowan
Recording date: 1940


19.   Do I Worry? (Volvo C70) - 2:41


Falling In Love Again (Marks & Spencer Financial Services) (more info)
Composed by: Marlene Dietrich Friedrich Hollaender
Recording date: 1930


20.   Falling In Love Again (Marks & Spencer Financial Services) - 3:17


In the Mood (Radion Plus, Walkers Doritos, Anchor Butter) (more info)
Performed by: Glenn Miller Orchestra
Composed by: Joseph Garland
Recording date: 1939


21.   In the Mood (Radion Plus Walkers Doritos Anchor Butter) - 3:36

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