“Like race car drivers covered in hundreds of logos”: When Tom Waits rallied against the commodification of music
Now more than ever, the hazardous pursuit of success and all the financial precarity that comes with it can often tempt artists to succumb to commercial pressures to simply stay afloat. If you’re lucky, you can be a young Rolling Stones recording a jingle for Rice Krispies to make a fast buck, or you could be John Lydon arsing about for Country Life butter to fund the subsequent Public Image Ltd album and tour, and the less said about Iggy Pop’s Swifcover insurance ads, the better.
One artist who has managed to maintain seeming credibility in their artistry and career decisions is blues-turned-experimentalist Tom Waits. Initially proffering nocturnal, dive-bar jazz records in the early 1970s to great critical acclaim, a creative U-turn sparked from meeting scriptwriter and future wife Kathleen Brennan, coupled with his first forays into acting with 1978’s Paradise Alley, ushered in the Captain Beefheart-style vaudeville that he’s most notable for, an off-kilter series of weirdly cinematic releases followed beginning with 1983’s Swordfishtrombones.
Eschewing commercial expectations in favour of a dogged commitment to one’s creative intuitions is a virtue that few have totally held onto. The Beatles made a good effort before a large chunk of their back catalogue was snapped up by Michael Jackson, which led to John Lennon’s penned ‘Revolution’ being used in a 1988 Nike advert. DC hardcore legend of Minor Threat and Fugazi Ian MacKye goes even further, rejecting any press interview from a publication that features alcohol advertising, an affront to his straightedge ethos. Suffice to say, you don’t see much of MacKye, but you respect him.
Another band you’d think would protect their lauded recording legacy with vigour would be California psych-rock’s The Doors. Documenting the turbulent West Coast with an immortal string of acid-blues records and volatile performances, frontman Jim Morrison’s enigmatic, poetic abandon would influence the future Swiftcover salesman as well as David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona. Such a seminal contribution to popular music surely merited sacred protection from the pernicious reach of vapid commercialisation.
Well, not so, according to Doors drummer John Densmore. Revealed in a post to The Nation in 2002, “Dread ripples through me as I listen to a phone message from our manager saying that we (The Doors) have another offer of huge amounts of money if we would just allow one of our songs to be used as the background for a commercial. They don’t give up! I guess it’s hard to imagine that everybody doesn’t have a price. Maybe ’cause, as the cement heads try to pave the entire world, they’re paving their inner world as well. No imagination left upstairs.”
It appears the allure of fast financial gain was much easier to resist when Morrison was still alive and fronting the band. According to Densmore, Buik car manufacturers offered $75,000 to buy ‘Light My Fire’ in 1967 to flog their new Opel range of automobiles, which was OK’d in Morrison’s absence. Big mistake. Once back, Morisson rang Buick HQ and stated clearly that if the commercial aired featuring their song, he would personally smash an Opel to pieces with a sledgehammer on live TV.
In response to Densmore’s post and the pressure from The Doors’ keyboardist Ray Manzarek to permit their songs for sale, Waits’ reaction was expectedly scathing but passionate. “Songs carry emotional information and some transport us back to a poignant time, place or event in our lives,” he said. “It’s no wonder a corporation would want to hitch a ride on the spell these songs cast and encourage you to buy soft drinks, underwear or automobiles while you’re in the trance. Artists who take money for ads poison and pervert their songs. It reduces them to the level of a jingle, a word that describes the sound of change in your pocket, which is what your songs become. Remember, when you sell your songs for commercials, you are selling your audience as well.”
This was a contentious topic Waits knew too well. After the horror of witnessing his voice likeness and a crass imitation of his ‘Step Right Up’ being used to score an advert for Doritos’ new Salsa Rio brand in 1992, Waits legally fought the corporate giant that owned them in the Waits vs Frito Lay case, the court adjudicating in Waits’ favour that Doritos had indeed misappropriated his distinct voice and musical style and awarded him a cool $2.6million. Ironically, ‘Step Right Up’ was a satire on the parasitic advertising world.
Skeletons from his Bone Machine closet rattled away, however. Despite Waits’ steadfast battle against the crisp conglomerate, he had provided narration for a Butcher’s Blend dog food commercial in 1980, confessing in Barney Hoskyns’ Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits: “I was down on my luck. And I’ve always liked dogs.” Like Lydon’s butter shenanigans, did Waits’ dip in the advert pool yield the creative freedom to pursue the eccentric experimentalism that brought about his most influential and acclaimed work?
“Eventually, artists will be going onstage like race-car drivers covered in hundreds of logos. John, stay pure. Your credibility, your integrity and your honour are things no company should be able to buy,” he retorted to Densmore’s tussle with commercial temptation. In a climate where sustainability as an independent artist has never been more hampered, perhaps The Doors’ battle with Buick or Waits’ dallying with dog food points to a bleaker conclusion: that there’s just no ethical navigation of capitalism for even the most principled artist (except if you’re Steve Albini).
