Mondegreen

I'm a bit fussy about getting lyrics right, but I'll admit that I once thought the lines "I give in to sin / Because you have to make this life liveable" in Depeche Mode's "Strangelove" were "I give in to sin / Because you have to make this like Liverpool". Hey, Liverpool didn't have that great a rep back in the day...

Meanwhile, I noticed that Slate's "most inappropriate use of a song in an ad" article was being discussed over at John & Belle. I agree with the use of "Lust for Life" to sell cruises as the worst, and I didn't know this bit about "How Soon is Now" being used to sell the Nissan Maxima:
The most outrageous misrepresentation of a song must be the Nissan Maxima commercial featuring the Smiths' 'How Soon Is Now?' A college radio favorite from the late '80s, it has to be one of the most depressing tunes ever used to sell anything. Sample lyrics: 'There's a club if you'd like to go/ you could meet somebody who really loves you/ so you go, and you stand on your own/ and you leave on your own/ and you go home, and you cry/ and you want to die.'"
Hey, that fits in with my thoughts on how the Smiths are spectacularly morose. Anyway, in the comments in the discussion there's some debate on whether Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" is or isn't a song about heroin. I say yes.

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Comments

7-8 said…
There is stiff competition in that department.

"Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve was used in a Nike ad, but it coyly left out the part saying "try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die".

In another advertisement, "Je T'aime moi non plus" was used to advertise the fact that Maytag washing machines could be found in France. Quite what doing your laundry has to do with 2 people humping each other (you don't have to know French to understand the meaning of the words) escapes me somewhat.
Daryl said…
Hey... if you played "je t'aime moi non plus" at the right moment I could probably be convinced to buy anything!

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