Sixteen More Tons

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the GE ad featuring supermodel coal miners. In his Ad Report Card column in Slate last week, Seth Stephenson took his own look at the ad: "Here's what I can say with great confidence: This ad blows."

With more resources at his disposal than I have at mine, Stephenson got BBDO Executive Creative Director Don Schneider on the line, who explained that the supermodels aren’t actually coal miners, they’re a metaphor. Aaahh, I get it now.

Stephenson also noticed the incongruous use of "Sixteen Tons":

Several of my readers were even more galled by the ad's use of "Sixteen Tons"—a folk song about the miserable futility of mining and the evils of controlling corporations. Merle Travis wrote the song in 1946, drawing on the experiences of his father, a coal miner from Kentucky. More sample lyrics: "St. Peter don't you call me 'cuz I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store."

Not a positive take on the mining experience. So what's it doing here, in a piece of pro-coal propaganda? . . .

Schneider says they used "Sixteen Tons" because it "instantly feels like a coal-mining song." He also argues that "you can picture coal miners singing it without any negative feelings." I guess. I don't think Merle Travis meant for it to sound happy.

Noting previous odd ad/song combinations such as "The Times They Are a-Changin'" for the Bank of Montreal, Devo’s "Beautiful World" for Target (which conveniently edited out the line, "It’s not for me"), and the Cure’s "Pictures of You" for HP digital photography (which also conveniently dropped the line, "If only I'd thought of the right words/ I wouldn't be breaking apart/ All my pictures of you"), he initiated a reader contest to identify more weird pairings.

The downside of playing catch-up, as I do so often, is that the contest was last week and we missed it, but the upside is that Stephenson posted his results today, so there’s no waiting. The overwhelming winner was Iggy Pop’s "Lust for Life" for Royal Carribean Cruise Lines. Noting the actual lyrics of the song ("Here comes Johnny Yen again/ With the liquor and drugs/ And a flesh machine/ He's gonna do another strip tease"), one of Stephenson’s readers rewrites Royal Carribean’s ad copy: "Somewhere between the drugs and the strip tease, it hits you: Yeah, this is way more than an ordinary vacation."