For those of a certain age, Toyota’s ubiquitous “Saved By Zero” commercials are torture of the highest order. It’s not simply that they air about every two minutes. It’s that they contain a mind-meltingly bad cover of a pop hit by The Fixx, which for Gen Xers is a two-fer: Ruining a song of our childhood musically (by handing it over to what sounds like the Wiggles), then commercializing it. (I’m guessing Boomers feel the same way when Elvis is martyred on the altar of “Viva Viagra.”)
The original message of the song makes the use of “Zero” especially grating. Singer Cy Curnin was finding solace by giving up material things; he was literally “saved by zero,” not a deal on a car.
Of course, the Toyota ads are only part of a proud history of taking pop music out of context. The first rule of picking a theme song is to throw irony out the window.
Thus the NFL using Morrissey’s “Everyday is Like Sunday” to promote its weekend games, even though the next line of the chorus is “everyday is silent and grey.” The song is about a depressing coastal town that Morrissey wishes would be nuclear bombed.
Kmart used just the music from Nico’s “These Days,” which is probably for the best, since it’s doubtful they wanted to suggest that Blue Light Specials lead to existential angst like, “Please don’t confront me with my failures/I had not forgotten them.” Nissan also stuck to the guitar part of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” because do you really want to tell customers that, “here comes the new boss/same as the old boss”?
My favorite has to be Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, which uses Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” as its motto even though the song is an ode to heroin. “Here comes Johnny Yen again/with the liquor and the drugs/and the flesh machine.” Woo-hoo! Everybody chase the love boat!
Do listeners realize the paradox? Probably not. Advertisers are counting on our emotional memory, not our literal one. But if you pay attention, there’s a wonderful antiestablishment message running through today’s commercials. While they say buy, watch, be happy, if you listen closely, they’re saying drop out, tune off, rebel.