Christopher’s Songbook, part two (commercial edition)- “Pink Moon” by Nick Drake

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(Ozarks Unbound publisher Christopher Spencer provides this week’s Songbook entries. If you’d like to submit seven songs for Songbook, please contact me at cspencer@ozarksunbound.com)

I can admit it now, but at the time I was in complete denial. The 1987 Volkswagen Cabriolet I drove for several years was a “chick car.”

Still, I loved driving around downtown Little Rock with the top down. The car was boxy and small and could dive into a parking space the size of a glass of water – just like those high dives in the Looney Tunes (see 4:30 for the reference).

It was 2000 when this commercial came out. It caught my attention immediately. Nick Drake’s dead voice is haunting and sad, uncomfortable with the banal. The urge to be or feel special is immediate in his music and it trips that same feeling in me when I hear it.

I’d never before heard of him, a British songwriter who died of an overdose  in 1974 at 26. I think a lot of folks my age had never heard his music and this commercial awakened a lot of interest in his art. The effect on sales of his album were immediate, long-lasting and deep. Units moved quickly once this commercial went public. Salon has a nice write up on the phenom back in 2000.

As for me and my chick car, after the commercial, things were a little different. It might have just been my imagination, but I thought a slight patina of pained but sensitive hipster (what now passes for “emo” I think) formed around that silver convertible’s chassis after Pink Moon.

Hey, I was in my mid-20s. It’s forgivable right?

That’s the power of advertising.

SIMILAR POSTS

• Christopher’s Songbook, part two (commercial edition) – “1234″ by Feist (Apple commercial) at 8:12 pm on August 9, 2009
• Christopher’s Songbook, part two (commercial edition) – “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucka)” by Parliament at 10:40 pm on August 6, 2009
• Christopher’s Songbook, part two (commercial edition) – “Back in Black” by AC/DC (Gap commercial) at 11:52 am on August 8, 2009
• Elise’s Songbook – “Hotel California” by the Eagles at 11:01 pm on August 11, 2009
• Christopher’s Songbook, part two (commercial edition) – “Galvanize” by Chemical Brothers (Budweiser commercial) at 4:36 pm on August 10, 2009