There Was Nothing to Fear and Nothing To Doubt

Congratulations to Dan Carlson for correctly naming "You Don't Know How It Feels" by Tom Petty as the Saturday Song of the Day.


Note: My friend Jonathan Smith left the following comment on yesterday's post.


"My favorite Bill Simmons excerpt of the day, from his mailbag columns:


Q: I'm kinda confused as to who's country this is?--Doug Downing, S.D.


SG: This is ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur country!This is ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur country!This is ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur country!"



Unless you have been living in Ted Kaczynski's cabin for the last 4 months, you have constantly been exposed to the Chevrolet commercials featuring John Mellencamp's new song "Our Country". I'm not sure when he dropped the "Cougar" but I digress.


Now, here's the thing. The song, which to be honest is pretty much standard Mellencamp, has been ground into the brain of TV viewers across America. In every commercial break through the baseball playoffs on Fox, baseball fans heard, "This is ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur country!" In every TV timeout through the football season, I hear, "This is ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur country!"


With all that said, that's not the worst part of the entire experience. The song contains the lyrics, "From the East Coast, to the West Coast, Down the Dixie Highway, back home." These lyrics seem fairly innocuous and are certainly expected in a song called "Our Country", but Chevrolet's ad agency did something I still don't understand.


They filled the commercial with images of Rosa Parks, dancing hippies, Richard Nixon, western wildfires, and Dale Earnhardt. To close the commercial, they show a shot of the twin lights going up from Ground Zero in NYC. Is nothing sacred? I'm pretty sure that Rosa Parks' courage and determination are somehow on a higher plane than advertising fodder. Tricky Dick? I'm pretty sure that's not what I want to see when I hear a song proclaiming, "This is ourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr country!"


I'm finally beginning to understand why I could never be an advertising major.