美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Jingle King' Tracks Decline Of Original Music In Advertising

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: 

A little advertising¹ history now. Decades ago, products had jingles³, songs or fragments of songs whose music and lyrics⁵ were composed to sell just one thing.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing) Mr. Clean gets rid of dirt and grime and grease in just a minute.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Singing) Mr. Clean will clean your whole house and everything's that in it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS #1: (Singing) Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DINAH SHORE: (Singing) See the USA in your Chevrolet. America's asking you to call. Drive your Chevrolet...

SIEGEL: You used to hear jingles over and over on radio and television. For better or worse, they were as unforgettable as Mr. Clean's bald head. The last few decades have seen the decline of the jingle² in favor of popular music that is repurposed and licensed⁶ by the advertiser. That shift left some people in the ad business behind, people like Steve Karmen, who lives outside New York City. He is a past master of jingle composition.

STEVE KARMEN: Unfortunately, jingle is an unacceptable word today. Jingle implies old. Jingle implies stodgy⁷. Jingle implies not with it.

SIEGEL: Or jingle implies frivolous⁸ not as weighty as a song, not real music.

KARMEN: Jingle is something that's memorable⁹. And nobody wants anything memorable today. They don't care.

SIEGEL: (Laughter).

Eighty-year-old Steve Karmen left the jingle game behind. But he's proud of his contribution. Tunes¹⁰ that he wrote and recorded sold cars, chewing gum, beer. And they were memorable.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Singing) You can take Salem out of the country, but you can't take the country out of Salem.

SIEGEL: Karmen created that one to flog Salem cigarettes.

KARMEN: In that case, I just wrote the music. (Imitating melody) - and then the ping was my idea. I remember the man who presented it to me, one of the guys at the agency. His name was Gordon Bushell (ph). I don't know if he's still around. But he always used to say, you can take Salem out of the country. But - and he would have this big exclamation¹¹ point after but. So that gave me the idea to put a space in there.

SIEGEL: Yeah. There's an extra rest in there.

KARMEN: Absolutely.

SIEGEL: There's an extra pause - your idea.

KARMEN: Hey, I know musical terms too, you know?

SIEGEL: Yeah (laughter).

KARMEN: Rest - I know rest. Staff is a good one. Note.

SIEGEL: Steve Karmen informally crowned himself the king of jingles. Although, there are other pretenders to that throne. He was a childhood pal¹² of singer Bobby Darin. In the 1950s, he played with Darin in a band. Both attended The Bronx High School of Science. Karmen played saxophone and guitar. And then he was lured¹³ into the jingle business. And he had some very big clients.

KARMEN: The advertising agency in St. Louis that represented Budweiser had a line. When you say Budweiser, you've said it all. And here's $1,500. And come back with a song.

SIEGEL: Which he did - heavy on the drums.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

VALERIE SIMPSON: (Singing) When you say Bud, you've said a lot of things nobody else can say. When you say Bud, you've gone as far as you can go to get to the very best. When you say Bud, you've said the word that means you like to do it all.

KARMEN: The lead singer is Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson.

SIEGEL: Really?

KARMEN: Valerie wrote "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Let's Go Get Stoned," "Solid As A Rock." I mean, Valerie is a most prolific¹⁴ songwriter. But this was - you know, this is how she made a living before she did that.

SIEGEL: And all the music and the whole lyric⁴?

KARMEN: Everything. I wrote the entire lyric. I did the orchestration. I'm, you know, a composer. I do my own productions, my own orchestrations. And that went on the air. And it ran for eight years with that lyric. (Singing) When you say Budweiser, you've said it all. And then the agency rewrote the lyric. (Singing) For all you do, this Bud's for you. And that has been on the air, basically, ever since in various different forms.

SIEGEL: How do you feel about that? I mean, this is your creation. This is your song. It's also a beer commercial. Do you feel as protective of it as if it were an aria¹⁵ in an opera that you did?

KARMEN: I do. I do. You know, the difference between a symphony and a jingle is symphony writers use more paper.

SIEGEL: (Laughter).

KARMEN: It's just as hard to write a jingle.

SIEGEL: You wrote a jingle - I'd like to play this for people now - that I recently heard a version of. I saw it on television.

KARMEN: OK.

SIEGEL: Newly orchestrated, I think.

KARMEN: Yep.

SIEGEL: I hadn't seen this in a long time. You wrote it years ago. Let's listen. This is for an insurance company.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: (Singing) Who can you call on for better insurance? Who can you call - Nationwide. Who can you count on for blanket protection and know that you'll find peace of mind? Call Nationwide 'cause Nationwide is on your side.

KARMEN: Yes.

SIEGEL: When we hear that music...

KARMEN: Right.

SIEGEL: When we see a commercial on television with that music, every time, you make how much money?

KARMEN: I make zip - otherwise known as zero - otherwise known as zilch - otherwise known as gornisht - nothing. And I was just starting in business then. And they give me a contract, their, quote, "standard form contract." Six pages of, we own. And you have nothing. And I signed it. And what that meant was they have the right to do anything in the world with that piece of music. I am not entitled to any payment whatsoever¹⁶ - not for the uses of the song, not for asset performance rights, not for anything. They own it. But I say to you in all sincerity¹⁷, I learned a lot of lessons from Nationwide.

SIEGEL: Steve Karmen says he learned not to sign a standard contract but a different kind of contract. He kept the copyright. And he licensed his jingles. He kept composing them, including one little spot to generate tourism to his home state.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I LOVE NEW YORK")

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS #2: (Singing) And to say, I love New York. You can climb a mountain. I love New York. And there's such great sailing. I love New York. We can all go camping.

KARMEN: What happened was Governor Hugh Carey knew somebody at an agency called Wells, Rich and Greene. And he said, will you develop a campaign? And they called me and asked me to write a song. And they had I love New York. That was their line. And I wrote the rest of the lyric. Two years later, it became the state song of New York. You don't have to stand up.

SIEGEL: I had no idea until I was at your...

KARMEN: I know. I would like to be treated with a bit more respect, please.

SIEGEL: (Laughter). Well, you didn't set out, at first, dreaming to be a great writer of jingles.

KARMEN: No.

SIEGEL: But you did awfully¹⁸ well at it. Any regrets?

KARMEN: No. You know why? Because it felt that I had the opportunity - you know, I used to tell my clients, I want an unlimited¹⁹ budget. And I expect to exceed it. I would go into a studio. And I say, you know, I need - I want 16 strings²⁰ over here on this. And I need a special whatever. I used to fly singers in from Chicago or from wherever to sing it. And I had the opportunity to hear my music played by the best possible people you could imagine. People say, well, it was only advertising. Wasn't to me.

SIEGEL: Well, Steve Karmen, thanks for talking with us.

KARMEN: Thank you. It's a pleasure.

SIEGEL: Steve Karmen wrote a book about his life and litigation in the advertising business. It's called "Who Killed The Jingle? How A Unique American Artform Disappeared."

1 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

2 jingle   

n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵

参考例句：

• The key fell on the ground with a jingle.钥匙叮当落地。
• The knives and forks set up their regular jingle.刀叉发出常有的叮当声。

3 jingles   

叮当声( jingle的名词复数 )； 节拍十分规则的简单诗歌

参考例句：

• Can I give Del and Mr. Jingles some? 我可以分一点给戴尔和金格先生吗？
• This story jingles bells for many of my clients. 这个故事对我许多客户来说都耳熟能详。

4 lyric   

n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的

参考例句：

• This is a good example of Shelley's lyric poetry.这首诗是雪莱抒情诗的范例。
• His earlier work announced a lyric talent of the first order.他的早期作品显露了一流的抒情才华。

5 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

6 licensed   

adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The new drug has not yet been licensed in the US. 这种新药尚未在美国获得许可。
• Is that gun licensed? 那支枪有持枪执照吗？

7 stodgy   

adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的

参考例句：

• It wasn't easy to lose puppy fat when Mum fed her on stodgy home cooking.母亲给她吃易饱的家常菜，她想减掉婴儿肥可是很难。
• The gateman was a stodgy fellow of 60.看门人是个六十岁的矮胖子。

8 frivolous   

adj.轻薄的；轻率的

参考例句：

• This is a frivolous way of attacking the problem.这是一种轻率敷衍的处理问题的方式。
• He spent a lot of his money on frivolous things.他在一些无聊的事上花了好多钱。

9 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。

10 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 exclamation   

n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词

参考例句：

• He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.他禁不住喝一声采。
• The author used three exclamation marks at the end of the last sentence to wake up the readers.作者在文章的最后一句连用了三个惊叹号，以引起读者的注意。

12 pal   

n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友

参考例句：

• He is a pal of mine.他是我的一个朋友。
• Listen,pal,I don't want you talking to my sister any more.听着，小子，我不让你再和我妹妹说话了。

13 lured   

吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The child was lured into a car but managed to escape. 那小孩被诱骗上了车，但又设法逃掉了。
• Lured by the lust of gold,the pioneers pushed onward. 开拓者在黄金的诱惑下，继续奋力向前。

14 prolific   

adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的

参考例句：

• She is a prolific writer of novels and short stories.她是一位多产的作家，写了很多小说和短篇故事。
• The last few pages of the document are prolific of mistakes.这个文件的最后几页错误很多。

15 aria   

n.独唱曲，咏叹调

参考例句：

• This song takes off from a famous aria.这首歌仿效一首著名的咏叹调。
• The opera was marred by an awkward aria.整部歌剧毁在咏叹调部分的不够熟练。

16 whatsoever   

adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么

参考例句：

• There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
• All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,do ye even so to them.你想别人对你怎样，你就怎样对人。

17 sincerity   

n.真诚，诚意；真实

参考例句：

• His sincerity added much more authority to the story.他的真诚更增加了故事的说服力。
• He tried hard to satisfy me of his sincerity.他竭力让我了解他的诚意。

18 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

19 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

20 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。