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Sound and Fury

Your ad here: Space to rent

By Dean Bakopoulos

This weekend I turned on the TV. First mistake. Then I sat down on the couch. Second mistake. I was sucked in, stuck there in front the old picture box, my basest intellectual capacities and my lowest senses all stimulated in a fury of orgiastic fluffiness. And when you spend an entire Saturday with friend TV, you're going to come away insulted.

My problem was with a commercial I saw for Mercedes Benz automobiles. It had the niftiest little ditty to it, a little jingle that went something like this:

"O Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

My friends all drive Porsches I must make amends.

Worked hard all my life, no help from my friends,

So, O Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."

Now unless you have completely blocked out the fact that there ever was a decade called the 1960s (read: unless you're a Republican) you recognize this little tune as part of the late, great Janis Joplin's repertoire. I don't think Joplin ever owned a Mercedes, though she did own a Porsche, and she may have vomited in one at some point, but that's irrelevant. I'm just not sure she would exactly be pleased with the way her stepsister sold over the rights to the song.

The song "Mercedes Benz" is a wry, sarcastic look at the materialistic world of American business culture, the people who measure success in terms of cars owned, vacations taken, etc. Worst of all, it is a send-up of people who judge each other's value based on monetary success. Basically, it is a send up of the people who would never give two bits about what Joplin did for her career, or for what any artist did for a career for that matter.

Joplin was a queen of the anti-establishment culture in the late '60s. Loud, raucous and under the influence, she paid no attention to social norms or expectations. Yes, her behavior and addictions ended up killing her; hers was not a lifestyle for emulation. But her message in "Mercedes Benz" was loud and clear: Money doesn't buy happiness.

Still the dipshits at Mercedes Benz and Madison Avenue don't get the point, apparently, because they plugged the song into their TV ad. That's like using a song called "Let's Kill Dolphins" for Starkist Tuna or a "Fruit Chews suck" jingle for Starbursts Candy.

What the folks who designed the ad want you to believe is the antithesis to Joplin's song. They want you to believe that a Mercedes Benz is a reward for all your hard work. But what they really mean is the following:

A Mercedes Benz is a sign that says, "Look at you. Look at me. Look at my car. Look at your car. Look at my car, again. Ha ha sucker, that's what you get for getting a stupid liberal arts degree."

A Mercedes Benz is a sign that you've kissed enough ass, lost enough friends and stabbed enough backs to make six figures a year. Well, congratulations.

Somewhere a poor stiff in an Armani suit, who once heard a Janis Joplin LP at a frat party while sipping a rich pseudo-beer like Sam Adams, is singing to himself:

"O, Lord won't you send me a sucker for Benz?

My quotas are rising, I must make amends.

Thought of money all my life, now I have no friends,

O Lord, help me sell, this Mercedes Benz."

The grotesque distortion of an artist's work to sell a product is nothing new. The Beatles' "Revolution" was used to sell Nikes. (Hey, the University bought into it.) The Mick Jagger/Keith Richards track "Wild Horses" is being used to peddle Busch beer. But what's most annoying about the use of Joplin's song is the fact that she is dead, and the integrity of her art is all that she has left. Joplin didn't really want to help sell a damn Mercedes.

But the commercial underscores a bigger social phenomenon. There's a distinct dichotomy of thought at work here. There's a business culture and an artist culture at work in America, and they don't like each other and they don't fit together. When their paths cross it comes off as vulgar, disrespectful.

Someday, I imagine I'll be watching TV with my kids, and we'll hear Kurt Cobain's gravelly angsty voice selling perfume with "Smells Like Teen Spirit.". Or we'll hear Michael Stipe selling orange soda pop to the tunes of "Orange Crush."

I'll turn to my kids, try to explain to them who these artists were, and then shake my head sadly. I'll say, "Kids, some of us get it; the rest go to business school."

True, I'll probably never own a Mercedes Benz. But I don't think most of my friends will be driving Porsches, either.