The peripatetic life of the journeyman folksinger has seen our man Tommy Treacle wearing sundry musical hats. From his bid to write horror-movie themes to reworking heavy metal songs into folk ballads to a foray into political tunes, he has generally eschewed the conventions of the touring troubadour. While he’s seen his share of dive bars and roughneck saloons, enough to earn a few scars and sordid tales from the road, he always looked for ways to find new audiences. During one particularly fallow stretch, he took a stab at writing product jingles. In this first example, you will hear an old ad spot from the 50’s for Ban Deodorant, which is followed by his own demo version done in the early aughts. The irony here will not be lost on his friends and family since Tommy rarely ever used deodorant himself.
Tommy even shopped his wares around Madison Avenue but to no avail. He watched the entire series of “Mad Men” and did find inspiration (saying he looked more like Bert Cooper than Don Draper) but grew dispirited when he discovered that Secor Laxatives is not a real product. He claimed it was his best jingle (I’ll try to uncover it!). Our second ditty is his take on FLOMAX, which dates from 2007 and follows an actual product advertisement for the same. And, for the record, he always contended his urinary stream was stronger than Secretariat’s.
There were a few others, including for Preparation H, but I’m not sure the world is ready for that one. It’s pretty graphic.
Great Exudations 