Nov 302013
I don’t know if you’ve stepped out to the sales. Maybe shopping is the best way to work off a Thanksgiving food coma, but I’d prefer sitting around and reveling in it. Besides, do those promises of a discount, free shipping, or a ginsu knife, make the crowds worth it? Who needs football when you can just go to your local Big Box store for some offensive and defensive action?
Sales? Gimmicks? Americans love to save money. In the spirit of this, let’s come up with songs that reflect, in the immortal words of Mike Brady, “Caveat emptor.”
I can think of two. What about you?
Sorry, but I can’t really tell – what are the criteria for a song to count here?
I’ll kick off and set the tone with Big Audio Dynamite’s “Medicine Show”.
That was one of the songs I was thinking of. Songs that indicate “let the buyer beware” or “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
1000 Dollar Car by the Bottle Rockets.
” A thousand dollar car, it ain’t worth shit
Might as well take your thousand dollars and set fire to it.”
OK, I was thinking of songs about bargains in general, like The Who’s “Bargain.” Now I can focus on more appropriate entries.
“She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft” — Jerry Reed
More of a political angle than a retail angle, but I’ll await judgment on Midnight Oil’s song, “Helps Me, Helps You.”
“Step Right Up” by Tom Waits. A dizzying string of every sales pitch known to man.
That was the other song I was thinking of…Great minds…
I always liked the B52’s line, “I’ll give you a genuine faux pearl ring…” as if that was a good thing.
I think “Set the House Ablaze” by the Jam has some tangential relevancy here.
I’ve never understood a lick of what he’s singing about in that song. Interesting.
Perhaps Joe Jackson’s “I’m the Man”?
Good one.
“Shop Around” by The Miracles
Doesn’t the version of She’s a Rainbow on Satanic Majesties begin with a kind of carnival barker recording? My version in Itunes doesn’t seem to have it.