Published Tuesday, May 06, 2008 3:15 PM
Updated Tuesday, May 06, 2008 3:17 PM

 

The Baileys

Favorite song now a commercial jingle


My heart broke the other day when I heard one of my favorite songs used on a commercial for a men’s hair care product.

Surfing retirees were frolicking on the beach, showing off their Touch of Gray to the unmistakable opening of Sunshine of Your Love.

Really, Cream? Has it come to that? Maybe their reunion tour last summer didn’t go as well as planned.

I suppose I’m used to musicians selling the rights to their songs for marketing purposes, and on the bright side, I get to hear some good tunes in between shows on the Food Network.  But I was exposed to a horror that can not be forgiven under any circumstance while enjoying my third cup of coffee yesterday morning.  My three-year-old was watching ETV, and in between shows was Barney – Barney – singing Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough  I was aghast.

In my defense, Depeche Mode is not listed anywhere with my favorite music on my new Facebook profile. And I am not against Barney- he has his place with the preschool set.  Plus, hating him is overdone. However, that particular song conjures multi-sensory memories that have now been adulterated by a howdy-ho voice emerging from a giant mite-ridden felt costume.  Let me back up.

It was 1989, and my friends and I were getting ready for our senior prom. I attended a boarding school, and my dorm room was on the second floor next to the balcony. Of course, it was spring, and the balcony door was open, letting fresh air and natural light into the hallway. Through that door lay the rumpled towels and squirt bottles of water from our latest attempt at absorbing a little color to contrast our pastel gowns.  Also on that end of the hall was a wall of full-length mirrors which always drew us girls like a shiny watch attracts a crow.  

Gathered before the magic wall that day were we prom princesses, wrapped in towels, applying makeup to our sunburns and exchanging jewelry. Steam was seeping out of the nearby bathroom, and the scent of Pantene settling against hot rollers was wafting from the windows. From someone’s room came the background music that completed this John Hughes scene - Just Can’t Get Enough.  And we were all pretty in pink (actually, blue that year).  I remember it as clearly as the Grapenuts I had for breakfast this morning.  From then on those first few synthesized notes contained the power to blast me back to a feeling of giddy anticipation, emerging independence, and the sweet, aching dispersion of that alliance of friends.    

Now I can associate the song with Goldfish and apple juice. Thanks, ETV!  If my pledge arrives in a somewhat untimely fashion this year, you can ask the marketing gurus down at HIT Entertainment why. Certain songs are permitted to remind me that I’m 36, married and have three kids – anything involving letters, counting, or Disney soundtracks, for example. But hands off the prom music.     

On the other side of campus that spring I have no doubt that a similar grooming ritual was being practiced by the guys, with Aramis being splashed across many a newly-shaven neck that was also bouncing around to the Beastie Boys. The theme for our prom that year was actually Don’t You Forget About Me, and I haven’t. But if I ever do, I won’t need Barney to remind me. That’s what the tropical photograph is for.

There’s probably a camp out there thinking, If you didn’t let your child watch so much TV in the first place, you wouldn’t even know about it.  True, but it’s really just to get me going after the older kids have gone to school.  And while I’m cooking dinner later in the day. And when they get really loud and it’s too wet to send them outside. But rest assured, the moment Caillou busts out with No Sleep ‘Till Brooklyn, that thing’s hitting the street with the Monday trash.