Some car commercials do grab your attention, such as the new one for the Honda ultra low emission Accord, featuring "Hold on Tight" by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).
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The commercial initially involved an Accord driven through a tunnel with scenes of nature projected on the wall, including sunflowers, swimming fish, flying flamingos, a bounding gazelle, and clouds.
Further iterations of the commercial have scenes superimposed on buildings, while the car whizzes by.
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The voice-over (handled by actor Kevin Spacey) goes, "Maybe making the perfect car isn't just about the road, but rather everything beyond it."
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The ELO lyrics used are:
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"Hey, hold on tight to your dream
Yeah, hold on tight to your dream
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold on tight to your dream"
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Another contemporaneously-released Honda commercial features The Who's "I Can See for Miles." The scenes include the HondaJet, their Indoor crash test facility, Honda racing, and ASIMO (the robot) holding a camcorder. Next to ASIMO is the FCX concept fuel cell vehicle. From what I can tell reading the blogs, this commercial didn't find nearly as much favor as the ELO-backed one. The Who have been selling out for awhile, which is fine for them, but the public is becoming somewhat bored, even disappointed.
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Nevertheless, I also read a particularly harsh blog on the general subject , with the headline being the ELO song (http://blog.dsquarednetworks.com/), in which there is this complaint: "Honda Accord commercial sings Hold On Tight to Your Dreams--yeah, 'cause those dreams are gonna be GONE! Don't ya love how the foreign pieces of crap car companies are trying to make their cars look American? And I think what the commercial is really saying is . . . buy our cars and put Americans out of work. So I think maybe we need a new song like, See How Our Cars Suck Up Your American Cash."
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ELO, you may remember, was a rock group from Birmingham, England that released twelve albums between 1971 and 1986 (and one in 2001). The band's direction and focus was driven by leader Jeff Lynne. ELO received a far greater welcome in the US, following generally lukeward reviews back in their native UK. By the mid-seventies they had become one of the biggest selling rock bands in the world and eventually scored twenty top-20 UK hit singles (as well as fifteen top-20 appearances on the US Billboard charts. ELO also holds the record for having the most Billboard Top 40 hits of any band in US history without ever having a #1 single. As one online encyclopedia put it (without realizing it would later show up in a rock-and-cars blog) "the band proved to be an excellent vehicle for confessed Beatles fan Lynne's semi-classical Beatlesque compositions, steering a fine line between album-oriented rock and a hit-making machine." In fact the band combined electric rock instruments with a "light orchestra." (In Britain, orchestras with only a few cellos and violins were "light orchestras," and were especially popular with the working and middle classes during the 1960s).
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In 1981, ELO's sound was adapted to serve their science-fiction concept album TIME, which reached the number one spot for two weeks in the UK and was their last gold album. One of the singles from the LP was "Hold On Tight." That year, the band embarked upon their last world tour.
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Not surprisingly, much of ELO's music has been used in Hollywood movies, TV, and other advertisements. VW initially made use in 2005, followed by Sears and Honda in '07.
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Now, while we're on the subject of UK-invented supplemented rock, let's consider the Moody Blues' "Sitting at the Wheel," which was a US Top 40 hit in 1983 (from their album PROMISE, also released as THE PRESENT), but failed to chart at all in the UK. But, their ever-hopeful record label did produce what I have to say is a pretty cheesy, routlette-wheel-driven and NASCAR-infused music video for the song.
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Many of you know that the MB's were formed in 1964 and featured a mellotron-driven sound that yielded albums like their seminal DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED (1967) and that hits from that album included "Nights in White Satin" and "Forever Afternoon" (better known as "Tuesday Afternoon" to you stoners out there). That, and the albums that followed, including IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD (1968), and TO OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN'S CHILDREN (1969) were late-nite hipster favs for the college crowd 'crashing' in someone else's dorm room. By the time "Sitting at the Wheel" rolled around, the band was somewhat reconstructed, still featuring Justin Hayward on guitars and vocals and John Lodge on bass and vocals, with Graham Edge still on drums and Ray Thomas still on flutes and vocals. But they were increasingly dependent on the new guy, Patrick Moraz, on keyboards. And someone was still operating the mellotron.
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"Sitting at the Wheel" (written by John Lodge) should offer just as much promise to car companies as "Hold On Tight," methinks. It's another MOR synth-rocker with a fairly aggressive, insistent, (but II think rather catchy) overall line. Yes, the lyrics, as one critic put it, are "just inane" and the song doesn't develop much beyond the main hook. But there is certainly enough for a great car commercial!
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And so it goes:
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"I can hear the music playing
I can hear the word that you're saying
I can see the lovelife in your eyes
What's the use in looking for an answer
I might find out
It could be a disaster
Hold on to your own time
Don't let go
Don't let go
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"I'm sitting at the wheel
Watching the river roll, roll on by, by, by
Sitting at the wheel
Don't let the river run dry."
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It rocks on in this vein for awhile. But it's just biding its time. You will hear it again, flogging mightily for some import, I have no doubt.
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If you'd like to see and hear the Moody's playing "Sitting at the Wheel" at Wembly Arena in 1984, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzrdOSt8PGI. And the original music video clip may be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hlm8KbtlRU. Enjoy!
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