Several years ago, Em had a contest about inappropriate usages of songs in commercials. (And I won...and still have the yarn in my stash. I should really knit something with it.)

Well, I have a new Inappropriate Commercial Song. (Raise your hand if you've seen it):

A bunch of forty to fiftysomething guys are sitting around, strumming guitars.
They start up a song that's vaguely familiar. (Upon first seeing the commercial, I thought it was going to be for pickup trucks or some "casual dining" type restaurant - it gave off that kind of vibe.)

But. Then they started singing the chorus to "Viva Las Vegas." Except they replaced the "Las Vegas" with the brand name of a particular medication that is, um, designed to give chaps a "lift" when they need it. (It begins with a V.)

I leapt up from my chair (I was alone in the room at the time) and exclaimed, "That is so wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong!"

I mean, yeah, "Viva Las Vegas" isn't exactly the be-all and end-all of American popular music, but I still hate to see a song abused in that way.

(They probably could attach electromagnets to Elvis' grave and generate electricity now, from the speed at which he's probably spinning.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's not too much longer before we see "Ring of Fire" reconfigured to sell a remedy for "piles." And I fully expect in my lifetime to see James Brown's "Sex Machine" (which, I will remind you, contains the words, "Get up....get on up") used to sell some kind of pintle-raising medication.

It's sad, really. I suppose the commercial writers would rather pay the money to desecrate an actual, existing song rather than hire a jingle-writer to come up with something specific to the product.