Madness Factor

Thanks to two older brothers, Electric Light Orchestra was a staple of my listening diet growing up. As a kid, I enjoyed singing along to the ear-pleasing melodies—even though the lyrics I was singing were mostly a series of nonsensical mondegreens. In the years that followed, I continued to retain my fondness for ELO, and would feel a warm nostalgia wash over me whenever I heard one of their songs, even as the band’s popularity plummetted.

After a lengthy absence from the charts, ELO experienced a revival of sorts almost two years ago, when Mr. Blue Sky was featured in an ad for the film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Ever since then, it seems like much of band’s back catalog has been in heavy rotation on advertisements, helping to hawk everything from clothing to cars.

I just saw a JC Penney ad that featured the song Livin’ Thing. The retailer is using the tune for a holiday-themed, show-people-you-love-them-by-buying-them-stuff commercial, presumably for the lyric “It’s a given thing.” (Maybe they want us to think “it’s a givin’ thing”?) The song fades in just in time for that line, then fades out before the next lyric, “what a terrible thing to lose.” How desperately contrived. I’m all for musicians earning a bit o’ cash from advertising—it’s a livin’ thing—but watching the marketing machine strip classic songs of their meaning for the sake of profit makes me sad. And these days that’s a given thing.

What ever happened to the good old-fashioned jingle?