Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Pickin' On A Wishbone From The Frigidaire


Have you ever noticed how many song lyrics feature the word Frigidaire? It's uncanny and the result, I suspect, of an active and successful product placement department in Frigidaire's advertising agency back in the 1930s and 40s. Here are just a few I have come across recently (and be warned, once you start looking out for them they are all over the place) :

Two Sleepy People (Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser)
Here we are, in the cozy chair, 
Pickin' on a wishbone, from the frigidaire,
Two sleepy people with nothing to say but too much in love to break away.

I'm Through With Love (Gus Kahn, Matt Malneck & Fud Livingston)
I've locked my heart, I keep my feelings there
I have stocked my heart like an icy Frigidaire
For I need to care for no one
That's why I'm
thru with love.

I'm Going To Move To The Outskirts Of Town (Roy Jacobs & William Weldon)
I'm gonna tell you baby
We're gonna move away from here
I don't want no ice, man
I'm gonna get me a Frigidaire.

I am sure there are many others and I confidently expect a more than usually active comments section with suitable nominations. There may be more recent songs that I don't know about, but it does seem that lyrical product placement may be a dying art. In my contribution to its resurrection, I have rewritten the first verse of Cole Porters' classic song "You're The Tops". If any of the companies concerned would like to show their appreciation, I can be contacted in the usual way.

You're The Tops (Cole Porter & Alan Burnett)
You're the tops,
You're an Apple iPhone,
You're the tops,
You're a Gucci Gemstone,
You're a flat-screen TV, made by LG, there
You're a Big Mac breakfast, a Toyota Lexus
Tesco Camembert.

9 comments:

  1. My Dad used to do product placements in his cartoons for the old London Evening Star. It got him an endless supply of Whiskey at Christmas and I benefited with a Phillips radio he handed on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hilarious! Makes me think of Janis Joplin's 'Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.' Wonder if MB ever showed their appreciation to Miz J? Though I suppose she could have bought herself one...

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's interesting how brand names make it into common speech. Here in the US we don't grab a tissue to blow our noses, we grab a kleenex. And during the '70s and '80s you didn't photocopy something, you xeroxed it (that one died out in the '90s with the introduction of inkjet copiers). An d of course I still know people who refer to their refrigerator as the frigidaire, even when it's an Amana or an LG. And I do believe on your side of the pond people still refer to vacuum cleaners as "hoovers" no matter what company made the one they use.

    Better be careful with the iPhone - Steve Jobs tends to sue people who use his brand names rather than reward them!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your lyrics are fantastic!

    I do remember the song Kodachrome by Paul Simon.

    I guess now it'd have to be the memory card instead of film version.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I had no idea Frigidaire was in so many songs. That pickin' on a wishbone line is great. Your lyrics are very good too...especially when it gets to the camembert.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice re-write; I was unaware that Frigidaire came up so often, tho I did now about the "Two Sleepy People" lyirc--the Alice in Wonder Band used to perform that song.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ha . . don't laugh, that's how language is born, how many times to you 'hoover' the carpet?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alan you're a bad un. I usually let music just wash over me whilst I do my thing. It is a standing joke in this house that I only know the first line of any song. Now I'll have to suspend all activity and really listen to the 'wireless'.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ted - you're becoming a Geek.

    ReplyDelete

11 March 2024 : Paper Hanging

  Some people read the paper, some try and understand the meaning of life, George II and Elvis Presley both died there .... and photographer...