Has anyone noticed how some brand names in songs appear more often than others?

For example, a certain motor company seems to crop up very often, such as in the following:

"Forgot About Dre" - Dr. Dre feat. Eminem (In a Mercedes-Benz with the windows up / And the temp goes up to the mid-80s)
"You Get What You Give" - New Radicals (Every night we smash their Mercedes-Benz)
"Generation Sex" - The Divine Comedy (Chase Mercedes-Benz'es through the night)
"Mercedes-Benz" - Janis Joplin (but of course)

Several other examples of other companies/products exist too such as:

"E.M.I." - Sex Pistols
"NatWest-Barclays-Midland-Lloyds" - Manic Street Preachers

Of course, in that last example, Lloyds has since merged with TSB to form the imaginatively-named company Lloyds TSB, while Midland has since become HSBC.

Hey! Sven, you stole my thread idea!

Even more coincidentally, I got it after a recent relisten to the Eagles' Hotel California:

Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She's got the Mercedes-bends...

Well, great minds think alike. But quicker minds get their thoughts out first.

Speaking of which, the Janis Joplin song mentioned above (and alluded to in the topic title ) also mentions Porsches. "My friends all drive Porsches, I must make a-mends"

"Supersonic" by Oasis has the following lines:

Can I ride with you in your BMW?

and later,

I know a girl called Elsa
She's into Alka Seltzer
She sniffs it through a cane
on a supersonic train
And she makes me laugh...
I got her autograph...
She done it with a doctor
On a helicopter
She's sniffin in her tissue
Sellin' the Big Issue

hey, 2 threads for the price of one!

"Driving in my car" - Madness
I've been driving in my car, it's not quite a Jaguar

"Mercedes Boy" by Pebbbles
"Life's been Good" by Joe Walsh
My Maserati does one eighty five

"You Are What You Is" - Frank Zappa ("He traded his dashiki/For some Jordache jeans.") ("I don't understand you/Could you speak more clearly?/Mercedes Benz!")

Then there's the case of the Kinks' "Lola". On one hand, the lyrics say "I met her in a club down in Old Soho/Where we drink champagne/It tastes just like cherry cola." Except, the original lyric was "It tastes just Coca Cola." I don't know if this still holds true, but at the time, the BBC did not allow artists to mention specific products in song lyrics. (It was tantamount to advertising.) So the Kinks had to change the line.

np - Hello - poe

How about Allen Sherman? He made a lot of them...

"My grandfather's watch was the best ever made
by the Timex Company.
It was just like the one John Cameron Swayze displayed
Last night on the old TV".

or

"Harvey's a CPA. He works for IBM. He went to MIT, got his Ph.D.
...
Bought a new XKE..."

etc...

... or Allen Sherman's spoof of the Herb Alpert song "A Taste of Honey" as "A Waste of Money" where the lyrics make use of the company "Household Finance" ...

"Moving Out" - Billy Joel
And he's trading in his Chevy for a Cadillac

Hit gold dust with this one for product/brand placement:
"Absolutely Fabulous" - Petshop Boys with Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley:

beluga (not entirely sure if that's a brand)
Chanel, Dior, Lagerfield, Givenchy, Gaultier, Harpers, Tatler, English Vogue, American Vogue, French Vogue, Aby-bl***y-ssinian bl***y Vogue, darling!

...and of course, Lacroix, sweetie!

"Perfect Skin" - Lloyd Cole
and she's sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan

"Harvey and Sheila" also mentions A&TT, HFC, FHA, and RH Macy.

Darn it Benn, you beat me to "Lola" by one day!

Yamaha Mitsubishi Toyota Suzuki Sony
Minolta Kawasaki Sanyo Casio Toshiba
Humpe Humpe, "Yama-Ha", 1985

"Darn it Benn, you beat me to "Lola" by one day!" - ScottN

LOL(A), Scott!

"White Slavery" - Type O Negative ("Let me say/Pepsi Generation/A few lines/Of misinformation/Watch your money/How away oh so quick/To kill yourself properly/Coke is it.")

"This Note's For You" - Neil Young and the Bluenotes:

"Ain't singin' for Pepsi
Ain't singin' for Coke
I don't sing for nobody
Makes me look like a joke
This note's for you.

"Ain't singin' for Miller
Don't sing for Bud
I won't sing for politicians
Ain't singin' for Spuds
This note's for you."

Ironically, this song may actually have acted as an advertisement for these products in spite of itself.

"Money For Nothing" - Dire Straits ("I Want My MTV") (Or does this not count?)

np - Bloody Kisses - Type O Negative

"Little Honda" done by both the Hondells and The Beach Boys.
"GTO" by Ronnie and the Daytonas.
"Junk Food Junkie" by Larry Groce
Then I pull out a Hostess Twinkie
And I pop it in my mouth

And I pull out some Fritos corn chips
Dr. Pepper and an Ole Moon Pie

Oh, but folks lately I have been spotted
With a Big Mac on my breath
Stumbling into a Colonel Sanders
With a face as white as death
I'm afraid someday they'll find me
Just stretched out on my bed
With a handful of Pringles Potato Chips
And a Ding Dong by my head
That may be a record for most things in one song.

One nit, Butch. You misspelled Dr Pepper. There is no period after the "are" in "Dr". (Don't believe me? Look at a can or bottle of Dr Pepper.)

Benn: "Money For Nothing" - Dire Straits ("I Want My MTV") (Or does this not count?)

It definitely counts - and while we're at it:

"Without Me" - Eminem
They tried to shut me down on MTV
But it feels so empty without me,

"For Crying Out Loud" - Meatloaf
And can't you see my faded Levis bursting apart

"Dr. Jimmy" - the Who ("Cut up my eyes/Tore up my Levis")

"Yours Truly, 2095" - ELO ("I met someone who looks a lot like you/She does the things you/But she is an IBM.")

"Sweet Is the Night" - Electric Light Orchestra ("Oh you start to sway/Check your Cartier.")

"Cities On Flame (With Rock and Roll)" - Blue Oyster Cult ("Marshall (amps) will buoy/But Fender (guitar) control."

Not sure about this one:
"Super Trooper" - Abba
I believe the Super Trooper in question is a spotlight, but I'm not sure if it's a brand name.

A few more:

"Regional Girl" - the Monkees ("I think he's gonna end up pouring Pepsi in a paper cup.")

"Then Came the Last Days of May" - Blue Oyster Cult ("Three good buddies were laughing and smoking in the back of a rented Ford.")

"Man On the Moon" - R.E.M. ("Mott the Hoople and the game of Life/Yeah, yeah, yeah/Andy Kaufman in a wrestling match/Yeah, yeah, yeah/Let's play Twister/Let's play Risk/Yeah, yeah/Monopoly, checkers and chess...")

"Add It Up" - the Kinks ("Gucci, Gucci, Gucci")

I'm surprised this one hasn't been named:


"Kodachrome™" - Paul Simon

More record companies:

"Working For MCA" - Lynyrd Skynyrd (One of my favorite Skynyrd songs.)

"Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" - Reunion ("CBS, Warner Brothers, RCA and all the others.")

"Randy Scouse Git" - the Monkees ("But four Kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor.") (The "four Kings of EMI" were the Beatles.)

np - Tales From the EDGE volume 11 - various artists (A collection of local Dallas acts)

In the late 60's or early 70's, there was a "Pizza Rolls" commercial where there was an orchestra playing "The William Tell Overture" and a choir singing, "Pizza Pizza Pizza Rolls..." then at the end, Clayton Moore (as the Lone Ranger) argues with the conductor for "Stealing his song". Then Jay Silverheels (Tonto) comes in and asks, "Want a Pizza Roll, Kemosabe?" A truly funny commercial indeed!

THEY JUST DON'T MAKE COMMERCIALS LIKE THIS ANYMORE!

Oh yeah. I thought of this one earlier today at work: "Mony, Mony" by Tommy James and the Shondells. Of course, it helps if you know how Tommy James arrived at the song's title.

I can remember when CDs first came out...there was a commercial on TV showing a CD player (can't remember the name brand) anyway, the song that was playing was "Bolero" by Maurice Ravel. In the background was a man & woman ballroom dancing...as it turns out, the man & woman were MANNEQUINS. (The reason why they did that is to show how "true to life" CD quality was)

Er, John - this topic isn't about songs used IN commercial breaks for products themselves (see here for that board) or about commercials themselves (try here for that). It's about original songs which mention identifiable brand names in the lyrics either as a means of identifying their cultural presence or significance (e.g. "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow ["They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks" and "And Billy likes to peel the labels from his bottles of Bud"]); for satirical, cynical or iconoclastic purposes (in fact there IS a British service called the "National Express" although, unlike the Divine Comedy song of the same name*, it's an inter-city coach service and not a train); or for other reasons such as... well... advertising (though I'm not sure how many actually get away with it).


*Though interestingly, the real National Express wanted to use the Divine Comedy song to advertise their services, however the company took exception to the line "But it's hard to get by, When your arse is the size, Of a small country..."

And some more Divine Comedy:

"Becoming More Like Alfie" - The Divine Comedy
Everybody knows that No means Yes
Just like glasses come free on the N.H.S.

I wonder... is this the only pop song in the world to name-check Britain's National Health Service?

Nope. Not unless you count the Kinks' "National Health". "It's the state of the National Health" is the only line that comes to mind right now.

Oh, yes, thanks Benn.

My apologies. If someone could please move my comments to the appropiate boards, I'd appreciate it.

"Goodnight Saigon" - Billy Joel
They sent us Playboy

And played our Doors tapes

Now requesting my previous postings to be REMOVED from this board. I moved them to the correct board myself.

Here are two by "Weird Al" Yankovic:

"Mr. Popeil" ("I need a Vega-matic/I need a Garden Weasel.")

"Eat It" ("How come you're such a fussy young man?/Don't want no Cap'n Crunch/Don't want no Raisin Bran.")

And one from Nazareth:

"Holiday" ("Mama, mama, mama please/No more Jaguars.")

np - Boogaloo - Nazareth

"It's all the same song" - Neil Young

Back in the USSR -- The Beatles ("Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC").

For those who don't know, BOAC was the predecessor of British Airways.

Summer Girls -- LFO

"I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch"

Two from Supertramp:

"I'm stuck in this dumb motel/Near the Taco Bell." - "Gone Hollywood

"You gave me Coca-Cola/You said it tasted good/You watch the television/It tells you that you should." - "Child of Vision"

np - Breakfast In America - Supertramp

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

With Chevy being mentioned then how about Don McLean's American Pie: Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

And a few more car songs:

Beep! Beep!, The Playmates
While riding in my Cadillac
What to my surprise
A little Nash Rambler was following me

Little Deuce Coupe, The Beach Boys
Just a little deuce coupe with a flat head mill
But she'll walk a Thunderbird like (she's) it's standin' still

Maybelline, Chuck Berry
As I was motorvatin' over the hill
I saw Maybellene in a coup de ville.
A Cadillac a-rollin' on the open road,
nothin' will outrun my V8 Ford.

From Bruce Springsteen:
My Hometown
I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick and steer as we drove through town

Johnny 99
He came home too drunk from mixin' Tanqueray and wine

And another Coke song is that WWII classic:

Rum and Coca-Cola, The Andrews Sisters

And back to various products or company names:

Mr. Roboto, Styx
My heart is human, my blood is boiling
My brain IBM.
M.T.A, The Kingston Trio (It stands for The Metropolitan Transit Authority)

MarkN, you missed one when you came up with Little Deuce Coupe.


Fun, Fun, Fun -- The Beach Boys
She'll have fun fun fun till her daddy takes the T-Bird away!

Oh, and as for MTA, just remember that Charlie never came back!

More Chevrolet:

Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band:

"They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets"

And even more Chevrolet:

Night Moves - Bob Seger

"Out in the back seat of my '60 Chevy"

Hey, those are great ones too, Scott!

>> Beep! Beep!, The Playmates
While riding in my Cadillac
What to my surprise
A little Nash Rambler was following me <<

And on the subject of Cadillacs...

'Rock The Casbah' by The Clash ('The sheik, he drove his Cadillac...')

More Cadillacs courtesy from the Rolling Stones:

Dead Flowers
"Well when you're sitting back in your rose pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day"

Not Fade Away
"My love bigger than a Cadillac
I try to show it and you're drivin' me back"

While y'all drive in your Caddies, I'll just hop on a motorbike and list some Harley songs:

"Golden Age of Leather" - Blue Oyster Cult - "And the humans and the Harleys caught the shifting sands."

"The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" - Roger Waters - "An Angel on a Harley pulls across to greet a fellow rolling stone."

"After the Fire" - Roger Daltrey - "I saw Matt Dillon in black and white/There ain't no colors in memories/He rode his brother's Harley across the TV/While I was laughing at Dom DeLuise."

"Unknown Legend" - Neil Young - "Somewhere on a desert highway/She rides a Harley Davidson."

np - Flashback - Electric Light Orchestra

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

While listening to Walter Egan's Not Shy CD, I ran across this song: "The Blonde in the Blue T-Bird", which also has a line mentioning "Chevrolet": "I followed in my Chevrolet." Walter Egan's Not Shy is the CD that features his most famous song, "Magnet and Steel".

np - Construction Time Again - Depeche Mode

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

"You're In My Heart" - Rod Stewart
Your fashion sense,
Beardsly prints I put down to experience

From the Electric Light Orchestra's "Train of Gold": "And when she moved/She moved to a beat/Like a Cadillac."

From dada's "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow": "So I flew to Hollywood in a neighbor's car/A box of No-Doz/And a bundle of nerves." And "We robbed a bank in Santa Monica/Bough a Caddy (Caddilac) and a gold harmonica."

np - Boston - Boston

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Ya' know, Benn ... you've been posting for several weeks with the adline of "It's all one song." - Neil Young and THAT brings me to my query ... WHY is this song/album/collection/eh? SOOOOOO compelling?

It comes from Neil Young's Year of the Horse album, a two disc live album. Someone in the audience shouts out a song title (I can't quite make it out) and Neil responds, "It's all one song." That seems to sum up my philosophy where music is concerned; how I can listen to so many different musical styles. So I've decided to use it as my signature for my Music boards posts. Does that answer your question, my friend?

np - Casey Kasem's American Top 40 (It's the long distance dedication segment. When it resumes, it should be up to #33 or thereabouts.)

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Maybe not a brand name or product, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration gets a namecheck in Ian Brown's "My Star":

Space exploration for nuclear stations
NASA corrupters, jewelled abductors

Saw this on Top Of The Pops the other week:
"Favourite Things" - Big Brovaz
Buy me diamonds and rubies
I'm crazy bout Bentleys
Gucci dresses and dropped up compressors
Wine me and dine me
Bring those platinum rings
Those are a few of our favourite things

(I don't like to be critical of musical genres which are not to my taste, but if I might in this one instance just offer Big Brovaz some constructive advice - You're rubbish!)

A commercial I saw on TV last night reminded me of this song - "Western Union" - the Five Americans. BTW, has Westeren Union ever used this song for one of it's commercials?

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

"Stayin' Alive" - Bee Gees
We can try to understand
the New York Times' effect on man.

"Down Under" - Men at Work
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich

"Thank God and Greyhound, You're Gone" - Roy Clark

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Something I heard on the radio today:

"Love Shack" - B52's
I got me a Chrysler, it seats about 20
So hurry up and bring your jukebox money

Tony Carey's "First Day of Summer", which has the line, "I wound up washing dishes in a Holiday Inn." And there's also Elton John's "Holiday Inn".

np - Tumbleweed Connection - Elton John

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

This is probably more accurate in the U.S. than elsewhere, but the Police's "Synchronicity II" has the line, "We have to shout above the din of our rice crispies (sic)." Over here in the States, there is a breakfast cereal called "Rice Krispies". My personal feeling is that's what that line in the song refers to. Of course, it could also be a purely generic reference.

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

We have them in the UK too, Benn. I believe we use the 'C' spelling.

Your previous post reminds me:
Blind Curve pt III (Milo) - Marillion
Another Holiday Inn, another temporary home
And an interviewer threatened me with a microphone
'Talk to me, won't you tell me your stories.'

From R.E.M's "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite": "A can of beans or black-eyed peas/Some Nescafe and ice."

np - Holywood (In the Valley of the Shadow of Death) - Marilyn Manson

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

"Convoy" -- And a couple of long haired Friends of Jesus in a VW microbus

...

This here's the Rubber Duck