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June 07, 2005

Comments

Carlos

I had not known that cough had undone so many. Plenty of soundtrack choices though!

Clancy

Carnival Cruise lines' use of "If They Could See Me Now" is pretty damned annoying. I think that commercial ran in, like, the 80s, but it's burned into my memory, and I still get it stuck in my mind from time to time.

Cala

I think there was a Jeep Wrangler (?) commercial featuring CCR's Fortunate Son... but just the first two lines:

Some folks are born to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.

Presumably because continuing to the chorus don't mesh too good with the buy-cars-to-be-american theme:

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Yeah!

djw

Cala notes my all time favorite, but a close runner up is the Mercedes Benz ad featuring Janis Joplin.

Joe O

I'm just not offended by songs I like in commercials.

"Lust for Life" is a pretty happy song. It isn't particularly ironic. Iggy isn't making a stand against GTOs or government loans nor does Iggy think that one shouldn't have a "lust for life". The title phrase is repeated 28 times (almost twice as often as the word "help" is repeated in the Beatle song "Help") and has its middlebrow orgins in the Kirk Douglas Van Gogh biopic .

Given the multi-choice question:

What behavior should be excused by the phrase "lust for life"?
(a) paying 1500 dollars a week for a cruise.
(b) liquer, drugs and the flesh machine with Johnny Yen.
(c) chopping your ear off and mailing it to a prostitute.

I am going to have to go with (a) for public policy reasons. (a) may be wimpier than (b), but (b) is wimpier than (c). "Keeping it real" can be a bitch.

"Perfect day" is a sad song, but the actual lyics are pretty innoculous. Sangria in the park, the zoo and then a movie. Why not watch some football.

Keith

Depending n the interpritation, Lust for Life is either about heroin adiction or STDs (flesh machines and skin itching leads me in the direction of the latter) Neithe rof which, however are really something you want to find on a cruise, unless William S. Burroughs is the captain and you plan on never getting off the boat.

belle waring

well, keith, one of your main irritating side effects of heroin is constant itching, so, I think you should revert to the former. another, interestingly, is an inability to pee, but this mostly affects only guys. so I hear.

Mitch Mills

Inability to pee? It's the inability to crap that's the killer.

m

Can't say I recall any inability to Pee- I suspect that's a story. And the inability to crap wasn't such a problem since I hardly ate anything. I can't say I recommend such a diet, though.

Dan

In the killing irony vein, there's always the use of Janis Joplin for selling Mercedes-Bez'es.

Yan

Since when is Perfect Day "about heroin and suicide"? Who wrote that? I think the NFL ad is less offensive than Mr Snidely McDont-have-a-freaking-clue-pants.

Daryl

Yeah, the Royal Caribbean Cruise ad was pretty gobsmacking in the way it missed all the irony. I think I saw an ad recently which just used the introduction of "Lust For Life" without any lyrics.

And isn't "Perfect Day" about heroin? Not that Lou Reed is saying, but it's always been thought of as some sort of love song to heroin. "You made me forget myself; I thought I was someone else, someone good." Great use of it in the film version of Trainspotting.

Yan

"You made me forget myself; I thought I was someone else, someone good."

I believe he is talking about the person he spent his perfect day with. I suppose he might have taken heroin to the park and the movies. But then the sangria would really be overkill. Now I can't get the image of solitary junkies trying to feed animals at the zoo out of my head.

It seems more insightful as a love song than drug and suicide song, or at least as a song about love as a form of narcotic and form of suicide: a highly efficient means of self-deception, flight, and self-immolation.

Daryl

I suppose the heroin links with Perfect Day have become such conventional wisdom (e.g. here and here) that I've never really ever considered it as a straight-up love song. I'm still inclined to believe it's a fond love song to narcotics... for one, I can't imagine a straight-up Lou Reed love song. I've always just read the first verse as a poetic rendition of a blissful drugged-out state, rather than a literal "this is where I've taken smack" laundry list...

mark

To me, the final lines of "Perfect Day"--you're going to reap what you sow--repeated over and over, undercut the possibility of the song being about a relationship with a man/woman. It seems like those lines are saying that there is going to be a consequence for your actions, and why even bother to say that about a nice day with a man/woman.

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