I don’t pay a lot of attention to commercials, that’s obvious. How long has this Wendy’s commercial been running with Violent Femmes as the background music?
At one level, it is brilliant! You get a whole bunch of people in their 20s and 30s who start singing along “I take one, one,, one for my family.” and then they start thinking about french fries dipped in Frosties. So maybe it isn’t crazy… but did anyone in the marketing department listen to the lyrics?
UPDATE: Sorry guys, I checked. Wendy’s hasn’t put the videos on their site and nobody has put them on YouTube either. You can get a hearty does of “Where’s the Beef” but no Violent Femme’s love… not yet.
UPDATE 2/27/2007: Still nothing on YouTube… Apparently I list the wrong song up there, but the bus memory is the song I say, not the same one in the commercial. Meh. I’m not a music expert or a rabid fan. Anyway, I did find this short documentary that might satisfy some Violent Femmes fans out there.
UPDATE 3/20/2007: I feel like I have some sort of responsibility to you all. I’m somehow at the top of the google rankings for this topic. According to one reader, “I just wanted to mention two things: One is that the lyrics you mention in your blog entry are not from Blister in the Sun, they are from Kiss Off (one, one, one ‘cause you left me…..etc.). The other thing I wanted to mention was that someone commented that they were surprised the Violent Femmes sold out. I was surprised as well, but then I saw a post made on another blog by Brian Ritchie where he says that he is disgusted by the use of the song, but that Gordon Gano actually “owns” the song and can make those sorts of deals.”
She’s not the first person to tell me I’m wrong about the song. Meh. I’m not Wikipedia, but I’m willing to publish her correction. Also, since Blog City is all wonky since V5 came out and nobody can seem to comment. So sad.
This Gordon Gano ownership probably also explains why there is some VF in the preview for the new Chris Rock movie. But is working with Chris Rock selling out?
UPDATE: October 14, 2007
Goodness, I still get hits for this. I checked again and guess what? Some of the commercials are now on YouTube!
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