Mirror, Mirror, on the Tube

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

TV jingles tell Americans they're lookin 'good

Gustav Mahler may be as unfamiliar to one chunk of the population as Blue Oyster Cult is to another, but practically everybody knows what beer weekends-were-made-for and which hamburger hawkers will do-it-all-for-you. In an age of increasingly fractionated audiences for radio and records, and of a dozen or so subdivisions just within rock, jingles selling products may be America's only truly popular, all-embracing music.

They are also a short, sharp insight into the temper of the times, a compressed cultural iconography. It was plain that the sexual revolution had reached the suburbs when in 1968 Ford Motor Co. sold autos with a song urging: "It's the way to swing/ Go and have your fling." McDonald's spoke to the '60s-weary Silent Majority in 1971 with words that had little to do with fast food but that probably summed up why people supported the Viet Nam War: "Let's start buildin' our world/ Let's stop puttin' it down/ Let's start livin' our dream/ Make the whole world our town." Royal Crown Cola suggested that "me"-decade selfishness was really an aristocratic demand for perfection: "What's good enough for other folks/ Ain't good enough for/ Me and my RC." Datsun started capitalizing in 1977 on the American obsession with Japan's supposed workaholism and business acumen via "Datsun, We Are Driven." Ford appealed to the old can-do spirit with "We Make the Impossible Possible."

Every one of those verbal messages was dinned into the consumer's memory with music that, most jingle composers agree, should catch the ear the first time it is heard, yet sound as if it has been around forever. The tunes sometimes become so popular that they are sold as records. The public bought a million copies of I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing in 1971, while a slightly different version--Coca Cola's I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke--was saturating the air waves free. Some tunes are adapted from classics. Some, like Steve Karmen's I Love New York, are endlessly repeatable four-note phrases. Last year New York Times Music Writer Edward Rothstein confessed that he found it easier to remember musical childishness like American Airlines' "... doing what we do best" than any Brahms piano quartet.

At least one political consultant credits a jingle with influencing a presidential race. David Sawyer of New York, whose clients have included Edward Kennedy and Israeli Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres, says Gerald Ford surged back almost to victory in 1976 partly because he captured the country's mood with "I'm feelin' good about America/ I'm feelin' good about me."

The Ford song reflected the self-absorption of the '70s. Ginny Redington wrote the quintessential "me"-decade song in 1975 for McDonald's hamburgers: "You, you're the one ..." Today, says Redington, "it's the exact antithesis. Nationalism is a success formula. Everything is America. 'Clean your face, America.' 'Brush your teeth, America.' "

David Lucas, who touched personal emotions and set long-distance lines humming in Reach Out and Touch Someone for AT&T, has also turned to boosterism in, of all things, a Pepsi jingle. The song speaks of "the light of a brand new day ... a feelin' deep inside you, a spirit you just can't hide." Lucas says he evoked an America "that was almost lost but came back again."

John Hill, best known for his "Maxwell House is ..." coffee song, sees sociology in tunes as well as lyrics. He links a "clear trend toward simpler, more spare" arrangements with a new ethic of "simplicity" as people cope with "scarcity" and declining standards of living. He contends that the boom in country-music versions of jingles is "tied up with conservatism" and with "a desire for retreat from the pace of urban life."

Not every jingle has political overtones. Some sustain the running debate over health and beauty vs. the joys of self-indulgence. Mothers used to be told by Pillsbury that "nothin' says lovin' like somethin' from the oven." Now David Lucas' Pepsi Light song chirps, "You're lookin' light all over/ You're lookin' good to me." The message, says he, is that people who are in shape, and are sexually attractive, drink diet soda. By contrast, Adman Jerry Delia Femina once observed, the shrewdest of all beer slogans was Jim Jordan's "Shaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one." The hard-core beer buyer, said Della Femina, is definitely having more than one and is glad to be told it's O.K.

Many jingle writers downplay their social influence. Paul David Wilson of Chicago says, "To be successful, you have to be a chameleon. You're paid to do a job, not to be a conscience." Karmen, the jingler most admired among his peers, has composed for companies ranging from General Tire ("sooner or later you'll own ...") to Beneficial ("you're good for more"). But he won't handle politicians, and has turned down Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George Bush. "That's irresponsible. You wind up with President Toothpaste and Senator Cola."

Whatever self-imposed rules they follow, however, jingle writers not only record their era but explain it, especially to children. Toddlers barely able to walk can recite commercial songs word-perfect--as Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury cartoon strip ruefully recorded in the story of a Vietnamese refugee child whose first words were a tongue-twisting burger jingle ("Two all-beef patties ..."). The jingle has been crowding out the sentimental poem and the popular song. Next may be the nursery rhyme. "Twinkle, twinkle, buy a car'' ?

--By William A. Henry III. Reported by Demetria Martinez/New York, with other U.S. bureaus

With reporting by Demetria Martinez/New York

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