9.02.2009

Jingle Jangle

Today at work we were talking (I know, right?) about commercial jingles from our childhood, and it got me thinking about how different advertising is now than when I was a kid. Today's commercials are more likely to borrow the connotations of a well-known song than to offer an original one, and that's a shame. It not only deprives us of some catchy jingles, but it attaches new and typically unwanted associations to familiar songs. When I think of the Pogues I don't want "Gigantic Cadillac SUV" to be the reason why. There are exceptions, of course. Volkswagen and Target often use interesting music in their commercials, and the minor annoyance of "Da Da Da" being referred to as "that song from the VW ad" was more than outweighed by the joy of hearing it several times a day. Unfortunately these are notable exceptions among a sea of advertisers who think slapping a catchy Motown or classic rock track on an ad is enough. It's not. Like most things from my childhood, jingles take up a large portion of storage space in my brain; space I could frankly use these days. My favorite was always the Syracuse Savings Bank song: Save more, earn more, dividends are best / Parking is no problem and people are the friendliest / Save more, earn more, dividends are best / At Syracuse Savings Bank (ding dong ding dong) / Your hard earned money earns more and more money for you. Byrne Dairy had a jingle too, but I don't remember the words, which is odd because we were definitely a Byrne Dairy family. I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes longing for chocolate milk in the glass bottle from Byrne Dairy - heaven! But other than the last line "cash and carry is the one for shopping on the run" their song is lost to me. This train of thought had me feeling old and disconnected from today's world, until after work, as I was walking into Target, a little boy five or six feet ahead of me pulled on his mother's arm and asked "can I go look at the toys?" Maybe the world isn't all that different from when I was a kid.

6 comments:

Bill Mitchell said...

You might enjoy http://jynglz.blogspot.com/

It uses classic tv & radio commercials to illustrate what goes into making great jingles

diana said...

How's this? My sisters, ages 81 and 75, and I put our heads together and came up with this:

"Byrne Diary milk is mighty fine
Chock plum full of vitamines
A wealth of health in every drop
Good for the kids and mom and pop."

Sister Betty still lives in Syracuse, sister Joey Stockton, CA, and I live in ME. We can't tell you what we had for dinner last night, but we do remember the jingle!

Anonymous said...

I remember something like:

Byrne Dairy Milk is Mighty Fine
A product of the Hometown Line
Every drop is Qualiteee Byrrrrne Freshness

Get your Byrne Milk at your store
or have it dropped right to your door
something something something

John Hibbert said...

I remember the Syracuse Savings Bank jingle, but I remember that the last couple of lines was
"Save more, earn more, Make your dreams come true,
At Syracuse Savings Bank (ding, ding, ding, ding), Your hard earned money earns more and more money for you."

Just a slight difference there...

Neil said...

I remember it as:

Byrne Dairy milk is mighty fine
Product of the home town line
Every drop is bottled here for dairy farm freshness
We take Byrne milk right to your door
Or ask for Byrne milk at your store
Byrne Dairy milk is mighty fine
You can't beat the home - town - line

Anonymous said...

Byrne dairy milk is mighty fine
Product of the hometown line
Vitamins in every cup
Good for the kids for Mom & Pop

Give Byrne milk the one week test
You’ll find out why Byrne milks best
Just one weeks enough to learn
WHY MORE PEOPLE SWITCH TO BYRNE