The first time I heard the TV commercial for Volvo’s $50k+, XC90, a bloated road hog, the hair on my neck twitched. The ad’s tone-deaf choice of background music, with each of many repetitions, has fed more fuel onto the fire of my rage and further inflated the monumental oxymoron of the background music’s singer + songwriter, compared to the product advertised.
Anyone who knows the life and art of the singer, Pete Seeger, may likely also recognize the song’s author, Woody Guthrie. A recording of Pete, singing Woody’s classic industrial labor anthem, Hard Times in the Mill, was first released in 1956 by Folkways Records, along with 23 other songs recorded by Pete Seeger, representing 150 years of struggle by workers for economic justice against greedy and powerful captains of commerce and industry.
When I finally got mad enough to write about the ad’s perversion of Pete and Woody’s music, I wasn’t surprised to find widespread abhorrence of the ad, in the ad’s Youtube comment thread, similar to my own outrage. Here is the ad —
Consider the full lyric —
Every mornin' at half-past four
You hear the cooks hop on the floor
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
Every morning just at five
Gotta get up, dead or alive
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
Every mornin' right at six
Don't that ol' bell make you sick
Hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
The pulley got hot, the belt jumped off
Knocked Mr Guyan's derby off
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
And ol' Pat Goble thinks he's a Hun
He puts me in mind of a doodle in the sun
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
Section hand he thinks he's a man
He ain't got sense to pay off his hands
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
They steal his ring, they steal his knife
Steal everything but his big fat wife
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
My bobbin's all out, my end's all down
The doffer's in my alley an' I can't get around
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
The section hand, standin' at the door
Ordering the sweepers to sweep up the floor
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
An' every night when I go home
A piece o' cornbread an' an ol' jawbone
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
Ain't it enough to break your heart
Have to work all day, an' at night it's dark
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill
This is a song about economic predation by industry against its workforce. It is about unfair labor practices and uncontrolled workplace danger. It is about privation of the ill fed, ill clothed and ill housed. It’s about solidarity in the face of adversity. It is about pretty much the opposite of a young couple, surprised by pregnancy, responding by running out and spending most, if not all, of a year’s income on a new SUV.
Maybe I could laugh this off as meaningless Madison Avenue schtick, if the problems highlighted by the great, historic labor anthems, didn’t remain so fucking persistent and contemporary. I can’t help but remember my own adult daughter in Austin, Texas in thinking about the lyric —
Ain't it enough to break your heart
Have to work all day, an' at night it's dark
/rant
PS
If you don’t know much about Woody and Pete, here is a nice survey.