Thursday, Apr. 16, 2009
It's a Jingle Out There
Ever flip on the radio and hear an advertising jingle and think – “who the heck is that?”
Or, did they really just try to rhyme something convincingly with “muffler?” or “gastrointestinal?”
If you grew up in the era when commercial jingles dominated TV and radio – before established artists started selling their songs for product placement – chances are you can sing along to the Oscar Meyer Weiner song, the Slinky song (“What walks down stairs/alone or in pairs/and makes a slink-i-t-y sound?”), or any of the various McDonald’s tunes that have proliferated each decade. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Try YouTube-ing it.)
There is a local jingle that gets buried deep into what’s left of my brain, and once it’s there, it’s like your out-of-work cousin that came to the beach “for a few days’’ – it won’t leave.
It’s none other than the spot for Barefoot Landing. I can’t recall many of the lyrics, but the melody is a beautiful sledgehammer: “Barefoot Lan-diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-ing.’’
Apparently, it was produced by an outfit out of Nashville, Tenn., called Brand Identity Group.
Who knew?
And speaking of Who (as I often do), this train of thought led me to one of my all-time favorite, but perplexing, pop albums: “The Who Sell Out” which features the legendary U.K. band performing original jingles for real and fake products, along with some jingles from London-area pirate radio stations (unofficial radio broadcasts that were banned by the British government). I’d always wondered which of the jingles were actually the band – it’s not too hard to tell on tracks such as “Heinz Baked Beans” and “Odorono” – and who created the snazzy, swinging ’60s sounding spots for Radio London, one of the pirate radio stations shut down in 1967 by the Marine Broadcasting Bill?
It seems this classic album has again been given the re-packaging treatment, this time with a recently released 3-disc, so-called “deluxe” version only available overseas, but it got me to thinking about the art of jingle writing.
For further evidence that we sometimes live in a time warp here in our little slice of Carolina paradise, consider that you still hear jingles for local and regional companies when you flip on the radio and TV quite a bit, something that bucks the national trend when you’re more likely to hear the aforementioned Who’s songs used to sell cars, Led Zeppelin (Cadillac), or Credence Clearwater Revival (Wrangler Jeans) or classic songs rewritten with brand-specific lyrics inserted (these, to me, are the worst).
So if the jingle is not dead in Myrtle Beach; why not have a Surge jingle?
We don’t have a creative services/jingle writing department, so that’s where you, the readers, come in.
Gather up your guitar, pen or keyboard, and whip us out a catchy jingle with some Surge-centric lyrics.
If you’re up for the challenge, click here for details and contest rules.
Meanwhile, we dispatched correspondent Paul Grimshaw – he of the Murrells Inlet Marshwalk jingle fame – to find out about the legacy and the state of the local jingle.
He also takes a look at the jingle writing profession in pop culture – from “Two and a Half Men’s” Charlie Harper to Dave Seville of “Alvin and the Chipmunks.”
Are you ready to sell out?
instrument drive
I made a very quick trip to the ATL (yeah, I know, nobody calls it that) over the weekend and as I practically met myself coming and going along I-20, I managed to bring back something I forgot last time. No, it’s not contagious; get your mind out of the gutter.
I nabbed an old clarinet that I attempted to play in elementary school orchestra.
Am I going to try and become the next Benny Goodman as part of a mid-life crisis?
No. Rather, I intend to donate this clarinet to the South By Southeast Music Feast’s Sunday Instrument Drive set for 4-8 p.m. Sunday at Mellow Mushroom at 1571 21st Ave. N., Myrtle Beach.
If you have any musical instruments lying around the house that you don’t use, you should donate to this worthy cause, too. SXSE, which hosts the monthly Americana/roots music based concert series at the Myrtle Beach Train Depot, is a non-profit organization that finds and refurbishes band instruments for area school children who cannot afford them.
Sweet Nell and The Feast and Friends will also perform during Sunday’s event.
There is no cover charge.
If you need more info, check out www.southbysoutheast.org.