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The commercial plugs have it!

There were several songs in the 50's that mentioned "Rocket 88s" (an Oldsmobile car) and Cadillacs
 
The Kinks "Lola"...Coca-Cola on the LP, Cherry Cola on the 45!
 
firepoint525 said:
I thought that EVERYONE knew that the BBC would not allow product mentions in songs. That is why so many otherwise innocent songs were "banned by the BBC" because they mentioned actual products by name.
Click to expand...

I didn't. I'm not a radio geek. :/ That said, today at work it finally registered on me what firepoint may have been referring to.

I know about the Beatles' "A Day..." and "...Walrus" banned and Wings' "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" and "Hi Hi Hi" making the Beeb's blacklist, but those were for reasons other than product plugs. I think.

ixnay
 
Well, desertv and Markieo, "Morning Girl" happened to be the song coming into my mind that inspired me to begin this thread.

ixnay
 
The BBC banned Paul Simon's Kodachrome because the name was a trademark of the Kodak company. Mel Tillis's Coca-Cola Cowboy was also banned because.....well, it's obvious. Two other country hits just barely avoided getting banned: Charlie Walker's Don't Squeeze My Sharmon was about a woman whose name just happened to sound identical to a brand of toilet tissue, and Asleep At The Wheel's The Letter That Johnny Walker Read had three words that just happened to sound like a brand of scotch whiskey.
 
Ronny & The Daytonas had a Pontiac GTO in "Little GTO"

Linda Ronstadt had a Waring Blender in "Poor Poor Pitiful Me"
 
Miss Silkie mentioned GTO. There are several other "car" songs:

Chevrolet - Taj Mahal, ZZ Top, Foghat
Chevy Van - Sammy Johns
Ford Econoline - Chieftains
Hot Rod Lincoln - Johnny Bond, Commander Cody
Little Red Corvette - Prince
Mercedes Benz - Janis Joplin
Mercury Blues - K.C. Douglas, Steve Miller, Alan Jackson
Mustang Sally - Wilson Pickett
Pink Cadillac - Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Cole
Rocket 88 - Jackie Brenston
'57 Chevrolet - Billie Jo Spears
409 - Beach Boys

And of course there was that guy who drove his "Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry."
 
Maybelline - Chuck Berry: "I saw Mabelline in a Coupe DeVille."
Beep Beep - The Playmates: A race between a "little" Nash Rambler and a Cadillac.

And Kodachrome was not banned in the US, for crap or Kodachrome.
 
KeithE4 said:
And Kodachrome was not banned in the US, for crap or Kodachrome.
Click to expand...

Some stations spliced "Kodachrome" to replace "the crap I learned" with "the girls I knew" from the second verse. But who knows, maybe there were some Top 40s or "chicken rock" ACs back then that wouldn't touch the song because of the "crap."

Meat Loaf's "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" mentions Coupe de Ville and Cracker Jack.
The Buckinghams' "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" mentions Playboy Clubs.
Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" mentions Newsweek.
Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" mentions Studebaker, Edsel, Disneyland and a bunch of TV shows and movies.
 
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