I just saw about the worst commercial I've ever seen. It was from GE promoting "clean coal." The idea of clean coal technology is a joke anyway. While it may cut down on the black smoke pouring out of smokestacks, coal is still a terrible idea for anyone who cares about climate change. Not to mention the horrifying effects of mountain top removal that I've talked about at length before.
But GE had the audacity to play "16 Tons" over the images of hot men and women in skimpy clothes mining coal while posing all sexy for the camera and the voice talking about clean coal. Yes, 16 Tons, as in "I sold my soul to the company store." This is not played in a coal commercial. Simply infuriating.
The actual lyrics to that song are amazing, "ST. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go".
ReplyDeleteTennessee Ernie Ford recorded the song around 40 or so years ago, if I am not mistaken. It is a heartfelt song, certainly not appropriate for commercial bastardization to help the coal lobby do more damage to people and our planet.
The rights to the song are probably owned by the nameless, unidentifiable consortium which approves the use based soley on the financial reward. It sucks, but that is one other aspect of copyright protection. Allows crass commercialization of classic music for profit.
Michael P. Whelan
The song was written by the poet of the Kentucky coal culture, Merle Travis. Listen to his other famous tune "Dark As A Dungeon" (played in the opening credits of Harlan County, USA) for a look at what Merle thinks about coal mining. Just another misappropriation by corporate/square America of a protest song that has been grossly misunderstood (see also: Ronald Reagan's hopes of using "Born in the USA" as a 1984 campaign theme song)
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