Where have all the jingle writers gone? I turn on the TV and hear Starship’s “We Built This City” turned into “We Quilt This City” in an effort to sell toilet paper. I hear it and immediately the image of some grandmothers sitting in a circle at a toilet paper quilting bee pops into my head. My mom used to do some quilting. She used to crochet afghans. But I never saw her quilting our TP.
I don’t find fault with Starship for licensing the song. When touring stops and the record sales are down, you have to do something to keep that mailbox money flowing. After cleaning up on the Billboard charts by hitting number one, perhaps it makes sense for them to clean up some number two in the bathroom.
It is a similar situation when I turn on the radio and hear “Total Eclipse of the Heart” turned into the soundtrack of an ad for a laundry freshener. When Jim Stieman penned it, he intended it to be used in a musical about vampires. The original title was “Vampires in Love.” Just the image you want when you’re trying to knock the stink out of your laundry.
However, I do find fault with the advertising agency. You’d think for the money they’re charging, they could come up with an original jingle. I fell in love with commercials because of jingles. They’re 30- and 60-second hit songs. Catchy and, therefore, hard to forget. It has been noted that music is an effective memory tool. How else would you have so easily learned the alphabet? Whenever you have to put something in alphabetical order, I’ll bet that song plays in your head. It does for me. Who would have thought an earworm is the key to education?
There are plenty of examples of great jingles. If I sing, “you deserve a break today, so get up and get away,” you’d likely say, “to McDonalds’s.” Same goes for the Big Mac jingle—it is basically the recipe for one of the most iconic fast-food feasts. That’s how, at the age of 6, the two things I knew by heart were my ABCs and what it takes to make a Big Mac. Now, if they had crafted a jingle for trigonometry proofs, I could have been somebody.
These days McDonald’s has steered away from those great jingles to the “boda bop buh bah” thing. What? They couldn’t hire a writer or a band?
Burger King told us that holding the pickle and the lettuce would not upset them. I give them credit for bringing back part of the “Have it Your Way” theme into their new jingle. A tip of the hat to the old with a touch of the new. Kudos to the king. Now, if they would do something about that plastic-headed mascot. Let’s face it, the king is creepy-looking. He was better as a cartoon.
Speaking of kings, how about the king of beers? “Here comes the king, here comes the big number one.” Because “when you say Budweiser, you’ve said it all.” It was originally done in a polka-style. In a stroke of marketing genius, they published an arrangement for marching bands. It can still be heard in the stands at some college games. The Georgia Tech band began playing it in the 1970s as a tribute to then-coach Bud Carson. It has since become a tradition for the Yellow Jackets.
Coca-Cola did something similar with their “Coke Adds Life” jingle. We played it when I was in high school because after all, “everybody wants a little life…Coca-Cola.”
Johnson & Johnson had a hit with a jingle that, like the product it touted, sticks with you. Before he sang hit songs, Barry Manilow was writing hit jingles, and “I’m Stuck on Band-Aid” is one of them. When the commercial came out in 1975, it featured a couple of other now-well-known folks: John Travolta and Terri Garr. That wasn’t Manilow’s only hit jingle. He also wrote the music for “Like a Good Neighbor” for State Farm. Since he was paid $500 dollars for the job, he doesn’t receive any royalties.
The folks at Daisy have really hit on something with their “Do a dollop of Daisy.” If you thought “It’s a Small World” was an earworm, this one gives it a run for the money. Good marketing!
I do have one exception to the don’t-use-pop-songs-as-jingles rule. In 1971, singer Susan Shirley recorded the song “Love and Apple Pie.” It would soon be reworked by its songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenway (they also wrote “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress) and ad executives Billy Davis and Bill Backer. They turned it into what would become one of the most memorable jingles for Coca-Cola: “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke.” The jingle was so popular that Cook and Greenway added three new verses minus the Coke references. The New Seekers and the Hilltop Singers both had hits with it. It would come back in 1990 in the Super Bowl in a spot called “Hilltop Reunion” in which the original singers and their children climbed that hill once more to buy…or in this case sell….the world a Coke.
I owe a lot to jingles. Thanks to them I learned my ABCs and how to make a Big Mac. What can I say? I’m lovin’ it!
