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TV Commercials That Became Hit Records
I didn't think it could still happen in this day of ad skipping, but a TV commercial airing in the U.S. has spawned a hit video. The company, called Total Wine & More, issued a catchy jingle almost two years ago as part of a TV ad, and it became very popular - so much so that it was released as a full music video called "Find What You Love." (You can see it here.)
It made me wonder about other television spots that morphed into actual hit records. The first one I recall came from a one-hit wonder called The T-Bones, who released an instrumental called "No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In" in 1966. It was based on the background music from an Alka Seltzer commercial that was running at the time. (The T-Bones, by the way, were actually members of the legendary Wrecking Crew, who appeared on hundreds of hit records over the years.)
Maybe the most famous was a song by the New Seekers, who turned a commercial about buying the world a Coke into a huge smash called I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing in 1971.
Not sure how many people know that the Carpenters' smash "We've Only Just Begun" started life as a commercial for an American bank in 1971. It reached #2 on Billboard and became one of the brother-and-sister group's biggest hits.
I'm not sure if there were others that went from pitch to hits, but this latest example shows it can still happen.
- paterson1
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Re: TV Commercials That Became Hit Records
How about Haygood Hardy with the Homecoming? The song was used for a Salada Tea commercial in 1972. Audiences loved the soft instrumental music in the commercial as much as the tea. Because of requests and the public wanting to know more about the song,The Homecoming as a single was released in 1975. The song reached #14 on the top 40 in Canada, #6 on the US Easy Listening chart and #41 in the US pop charts. The LP of the same name went gold in Canada.
- kosmo
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this song from Subaru was expanded and released
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This article lists a number of songs I didn't know were originally commercials.
For instance David Dundas' "Jeans On" was once a spot for Brutus Jeans in the U.K. before the lyrics were reworked.
I had long forgotten "Music To Watch Girls By," an instrumental from the Bob Crewe Generation, was once used as BG music to sell Pepsi.
Paul Anka didn't write but sang The Times of Your Life for a Kodak spot, before he had his own hit with it.
And this one may be my favourite, only because I'd never heard of it before. Everyone knows the "When You Say Bud" commercial for the ubiquitous beer, but I had no idea it was transformed into the last charted hit for Sonny & Cher, this time called "When You Say Love." Who knew?
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Thread Starter- 67GreenRambler
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Re: TV Commercials That Became Hit Records
Not Top 40 but certainly a must for any wedding DJ platter (playlist).
- RonaldS
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There's a story to go along with that:
paterson1 wrote:
How about Haygood Hardy with the Homecoming? The song was used for a Salada Tea commercial in 1972. Audiences loved the soft instrumental music in the commercial as much as the tea. Because of requests and the public wanting to know more about the song,The Homecoming as a single was released in 1975. The song reached #14 on the top 40 in Canada, #6 on the US Easy Listening chart and #41 in the US pop charts. The LP of the same name went gold in Canada.
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I'd almost forgotten about this, but it's great. It's from an old Sunday Sunday piece we did back at CFTR in the 80s. Correspondent Melanie Reffes flew down to her old hometown of New York to interview Steve Karmen, then known as King Of The Jingles.
You may not know his name, but you certainly know his work. Among his famous commercials:
When You Say Budweiser, You've Said It All
Sooner or Later, You'll Own General,
At Beneficial (Boop Boop) You're Good For More
Nationwide Is On Your Side
and perhaps his most famous:
I Love New York.
He talks about all of these and more in this great piece which sounds as great today as it did back then. One thing you won't hear is how he was coming on to her during the interview, but you can sense it if you listen closely. If you're curious, you can hear the feature here.
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Thread Starter- paterson1
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Re: TV Commercials That Became Hit Records
There's a story to go along with that:
How about Haygood Hardy with the Homecoming? The song was used for a Salada Tea commercial in 1972. Audiences loved the soft instrumental music in the commercial as much as the tea. Because of requests and the public wanting to know more about the song,The Homecoming as a single was released in 1975. The song reached #14 on the top 40 in Canada, #6 on the US Easy Listening chart and #41 in the US pop charts. The LP of the same name went gold in Canada.
Thanks for posting the CBC clip Ronald S. That was so interesting and really shows how hard it could be to prove copyright infringement for music. The last few minutes really makes you think and certainly changed my mind on who did or didn't write The Homecoming and how intentional would it have been. They could make a movie for TV about the story. Maybe Law & Order Toronto?? It would be a perfect episode for the show, since so much is Toronto based. No murder, but high drama in court, and deathbed testimony. And The Homecoming, other than maybe on Zoomer is never heard on the radio anymore.
- Doug Thompson
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Steve Karmen has been a commercial jingle writer hero of mine since I first heard his work in the early 1970s. He wrote a book in 1989 titled "Through The Jingle Jungle". Karmen was also business smart. He retained the copyrights to his commercial work as opposed to being a jingle writer for hire and the client wound up owning the publishing and the copyrights.
Here in Canada, we had several amazing commercial jingle creators - Doug Riley, Tommy Ambrose, Larry Trudel, Mort Ross, Ben McPeek, Hagood Hardy, Ralph Cole, David Fleury and Terry Bush, whose Anti-Drug Addiction jingle, "Do You Know What You're Doing?" was released as a single on RCA. Quite a few stations not only played the PSA, but also the single.
In Vancouver, Griffiths, Gibson, Ramsay was the top dog. Their 45 release on Attic Records was a full length version of the A&W Rootbear tuba theme, "Ba-Dum Ba Dum" released under the name Major Ursus. I know stations played it, but have no idea if it ever charted anywhere.
Last edited by Doug Thompson (May 9, 2025 8:15 pm)
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- paterson1
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Does anyone remember Seacoast Sound out of Victoria BC? They produced fantastic jingles from about 1979 to 2005. When in radio sales I used Seacoast to produce jingles for a few accounts, and was never disappointed. They produced jingles for all of the biggest accounts of the day- Petro Canada, Eaton's, Sears, Bootlegger, various shopping malls etc. They produced jingles in Spanish, French and Japanese for US, European and Japanese advertisers. But they were great for local advertisers who wanted a jingle for their business. Price wise Seacoast was quite reasonable, and the quality first rate. CHUM bought the company which also included a few radio stations but after about a year wound down the jingle company around 2005.
- Forward Power
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How about Haygood Hardy with the Homecoming? The song was used for a Salada Tea commercial in 1972. Audiences loved the soft instrumental music in the commercial as much as the tea. Because of requests and the public wanting to know more about the song,The Homecoming as a single was released in 1975. The song reached #14 on the top 40 in Canada, #6 on the US Easy Listening chart and #41 in the US pop charts. The LP of the same name went gold in Canada.
Pulled this up on Spotify just now, and recognized the tune, but at first didn't remember where I'd heard it before. The Salada ad was before my time (I'm an '83 model), so maybe I heard it on CKLY Lindsay in its early days on FM, when they'd play instrumentals in the evening. Nope... I'd heard it on Stingray Naturescape, the "slow TV" channel, ch. 300 on Cogeco, as my wife often switches to that channel when she dozes off on the couch while binging PVR'd shows.
- dieter
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I didn't think it could still happen in this day of ad skipping, but a TV commercial airing in the U.S. has spawned a hit video. The company, called Total Wine & More, issued a catchy jingle almost two years ago as part of a TV ad, and it became very popular - so much so that it was released as a full music video called "Find What You Love." (You can see it here.)
It made me wonder about other television spots that morphed into actual hit records. The first one I recall came from a one-hit wonder called The T-Bones, who released an instrumental called "No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In" in 1966. It was based on the background music from an Alka Seltzer commercial that was running at the time. (The T-Bones, by the way, were actually members of the legendary Wrecking Crew, who appeared on hundreds of hit records over the years.)
Maybe the most famous was a song by the New Seekers, who turned a commercial about buying the world a Coke into a huge smash called I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing in 1971.
Not sure how many people know that the Carpenters' smash "We've Only Just Begun" started life as a commercial for an American bank in 1971. It reached #2 on Billboard and became one of the brother-and-sister group's biggest hits.
I'm not sure if there were others that went from pitch to hits, but this latest example shows it can still happen.
The lyrics for "We've Only Just Begun" were by Paul Williams. That helped launch his long writing career, which included an Oscar and "Phantom of the Paradise."
- Lorne
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From The Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia:
COLEMAN WILDE
Ralph Cole / Doug Wilde
While working on radio and television jingle production in the Harris Cole Wilde company, Ralph Cole (Lighthouse) and Doug Wilde were asked to write and record a song for Australian beer company Foster’s. Ad agency copyright editor Peter Gilboy gave the duo lyrics and they proceeded to write six musical interpretations that competed against other ad agencies. The song “It Doesn’t Matter” won the ad placement. Attic Records came to them to create a a single and the duo expanded the 30 second piece to full length which attained significant airplay under the fictitious name Coleman Wilde. The single would sell nearly 30,000 copies in Canada. With notes from Doug Wilde.
Single
1989 It Doesn’t Matter/It Doesn’t Matter (Dub Mix) (Attic) AT-390
Compilation Tracks
1993 “It Doesn’t Matter” on ‘Sun Jammin’ 3′ (Sony Music Direct) TVK-24007
1993 “It Doesn’t Matter” on “Caught In The Attic” [3CD] (Attic) ATTIC-XX
1997 “It Doesn’t Matter” on ‘Contact 3! The Third Period/Contact 3! La Troisième Période (Attic) ACD-1466
Last edited by Lorne (May 10, 2025 10:44 am)
- darcyh
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Re: TV Commercials That Became Hit Records
How about the song "The Disadvantages of You" from the band The Brass Ring. This catchy instrumental was used for Benson & Hedges cigarettes.
- turkeytop
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How about the song "The Disadvantages of You" from the band The Brass Ring. This catchy instrumental was used for Benson & Hedges cigarettes.
There was another ad in that series, where the VW driver had an outward bubble in the windshield to accomodate the length of the cigarette.
That ad has a cult following even today among VW enthusiasts. Our son is an activist member of the KW Volkswagon Club and they all love that one.
Last edited by turkeytop (May 10, 2025 1:11 pm)
After all is said and done, more is usually said than done.
- Lorne
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Just remembered another Canadian example. From the CanadianBands.com entry for Robbie Lane & The Disciples:
They landed a TV advertisement jingle deal to help promote Baby Ruth chocolate bars, thanks in part to the musical director of “It’s Happening” Doug Riley. The song was so catchy that Riley used a stripped down version of the band that featured Lane, Bush, Trach and Shearer to record it as a single, releasing “Baby Ruth” under the pseudonym of The Butterfingers in 1968 on Red Leaf Records. That same year Hallmark Records approached Lane to record another single on their label under the Butterfingers name, and their second single, “Look What’s New” was released.
- RadioActive
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Not quite the thread topic, but interesting nonetheless, especially because it involves Under The Influence host Terry O'Reilly. (Have to say the IKEA & HP Sauce spots are the only ones I'm familiar with, but then I skip 99.9% of all TV ads by DVRing everything and I don't record a lot off of Canadian TV.)
Remember these iconic Canadian ads?
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