Tuesday, November 14, 2006

This is Whose Country?

Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls have been struggling a bit, lately, trying to understand just why John Mellencamp’s song, “Our Country,” for the current series of Chevy Truck commercials is so annoying. Based on what we’ve been reading on many of the more popular sports-related blogs, others in the blogosphere share our sentiment.

Do we have anything against Chevy Trucks? Not really. But the song itself, and the accompanying video in all the commercials, is extremely irritating. Why?

Maybe it’s because the commercials seem to appear during every single break in action during NFL games. That may be our imagination, but the frequency with which they appear is way, way over the top. Secondly, the song itself isn’t that good. Some words come to mind:

Contrived: The song reeks of having been contrived specifically to shill for GM while simultaneously promoting Mellencamp’s faltering career.

Trite: “Our Country” panders in the worst way to base sentiment. Insipid. Ugh:

I can stand beside
Things I think are right
And I can stand beside
The idea of stand and fight

Bombastic: Its anthemic pretensions are comical. The song is more jingle than anthem:

There's room enough here
For science to live

Question: What the fuck is that? Answer: Lame lyrics.

Cloying: The repetitive refrain. I mean, come on, over and over and over, gimme a break …

From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our country

Frankly, Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls don’t need John Fucking Mellencamp to tell us this is our country. But we can’t help but wonder what some others might think when they see these commercials: How about illegal immigrants? The Rev. Ted Haggard? Deposed Senator Rick Santorum? Inmates in federal penitentiaries?

And the ones that run this land
Will help the poor and common man

Yeah, right. You just keep telling yourself that, asswipe. The ones that run this land? Like GM? Or aging, pretentious rock stars?

Annoying twit.

4 comments:

Dr. Paul Shemp said...

There's no doubt that Mellencamp is, at best, an aging rockstar looking to make one last go of fame and stardom. That he's doing so via truck commercials is telling in that the attempt to ride the coat tails of 'success' via a car company shows just how far he's sunk. When you mix that with the pandering with softie lyrics, it's more embarassing than anything else. There are few things more embarassing than an aging rock star/athlete that doens't know when to just hang it up and go away, you know?

You know what *would* be funny? If Mellencamp teamed with, say United Airlines, and did the same commercial with the same song for them. Given the way our airline industry is faltering, his pandering might actually improve the commercial!

frank said...

this is just like the applebee's commercials during the ncaa tournament last season. i think those were worse.

Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls said...

Can you imagine Tom Waits shamelessly selling out like Mellencunt?

Didn't think so.

Dr. Paul Shemp said...

Or another name ... mellencan't. Can't get a job anymore. HAHAHA!