Mormons and Bowie's ''Changes''

[Lamia]

No one else I've mentioned this to remembers it, but I swear that several years back there was a television advertisement for the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that used David Bowie's song "Changes". In fact, every time I hear the song I think about Mormons. So my question has two parts:

1. Was there really a commercial like this?

and

2. If so, what on earth were the people involved thinking? I mean, this seems about as unlikely a pairing of product (if you can call a religion a product) and artist as one could imagine.

[Chas.E]

Originally posted by Lamia
I mean, this seems about as unlikely a pairing of product (if you can call a religion a product) and artist as one could imagine.

Don't know about mormons, but I'm really sick of Changes being used for Novell networking commercials. Will the rape of my favorite music never end?!?

[edwino]

How bout "Heroes" used for Microsoft commercials. Ruins two wonderful Bowie songs.

But Bowie is no stranger to odd pairings -- how about him and Bing Crosby in "Little Drummer Boy." If that could happen, then I am not surprised by the Church of LDS using "Changes."

[Padeye]

I can't answer #1 and #2 sounds more like a IMHO or MPSIMS post. What the heck.

My current least favorite WTF were they thinking commercial is the ... some jeans company, Wranglers I think, using CCR's Favorite Son but stripping it of it's intended meaning by only playing the first couple of lines "some people are born to wave the flag, ooh, they're red white and blue."

[Home voice]
Time to change the oil, ch-ch-changing, don't want to be an oily man....

[Lamia]

People, people! This is not IMHO! I asked a serious question here, and the fate of the free world may hang in the balance. Okay, maybe not the fate of the free world. But I've got a friend who really likes Bowie, and she swears that he never sold out to the Mormons. If I can prove her wrong, I'll be able to tease her about it FOREVER! So if anyone else remembers this commercial, please let me know. I can't believe I just imagined it.

[Arken]

I don't know if there was a commercial made, but if there was, it had to have been with Bowie's permission or we would definitely be hearing about a big lawsuit... This means that either:

1) Bowie thinks the mormons are pretty cool (somehow I doubt this giving their 'not even passionate kissing before marriage' thing)

2) Bowie doesn't give a damn what people do with his music as long as he's paid for it.

3) Hi, Opal!

or

4) The Mormons offered Bowie so much money for the rights to the song that his brain turned to Jell-O and he accepted.

[11811]

Bowie went public a few years back. He sold shares of himself that were based on the value of future royalties. As I recall he made a huge stinkin' butload of money.

I think that as a result he's either
a) obliged to take every offer that comes along or
b) not in control of the decision-making process.

This might explain why such a thing could happen but would not confirm that it did.

[tomndebb]

Well, ironically, you might want to check out David Bowie's Homepage < eg >

[askol]

Chrome: I believe thew were bonds, not shares.

If they were stock, the holders could force him to take every action that could make money. But with bonds, I think the only thing he's liable for is that they pay out as promised. I'm am, however, talking out of my ass (except for the part about them being bonds not shares), so lemme see what I can dig up.

I'll be back

askol

[askol]

Aparently, they really are bonds, and they were bought up by a single corp.

link:
http://www.canoe.ca/JamDavidBowie/feb14_bonds.html

According to the article, the bonds are backed by the royalties of his musical work previous to 1990. Their interest rate is 7.9%, and they are ten year bonds. Prudential Insurance bought all $55 million worth of them.

However, even though I know the nature of the selling out, I still don't know if he is contractually obliged to accept all reasonable offers, or if he is legally obliged to take any action aside from paying off these bonds once 2007 rolls around. And Bowie is probably rich enough to do that if his cash flow stopped today.

Someone who understands what Bowie is and is not obligated to do in light of this information is welcome to speak up.

aside:
Another article said that the Bowie Bonds were rated single-A-3. Can someone explain what this mumbo-jumbo means?

askol

[Dewey Cheatem Undhow]

askol wrote:

Another article said that the Bowie Bonds were rated single-A-3. Can someone explain what this mumbo-jumbo means?

The two major bond rating agencies are Moody's and Standard and Poor's. They basically grade bond issuers, giving investors an idea of how risky the bonds are (e.g., how likely it is that the issuer will default on the bonds.) Generally, you want to see lots of "A's" in the rating -- the scale is a little like the grading scale used in school.

The precise rating system varies from rating agency to rating agency.

Moody's can be found here:
http://www.moodys.com/moodys/cust/ra...tions/rdef.asp

Standard and Poor's can be found here:
http://www.standardandpoors.com/Reso...finitions.html

[gwar]

Being Mormon, it seems very out of character for the church to use any rock and roll music in their commercials, especially from the gender-bending Bowie.
When exactly do you think this commercial aired? Back a few years ago, it seemed like the commercials were quite wholesome with cheesy background music with lyrics about families and telling the truth and what-not.

[Lamia]

Originally posted by gwar
Being Mormon, it seems very out of character for the church to use any rock and roll music in their commercials, especially from the gender-bending Bowie.

That's what I thought. I can believe that Bowie would perhaps agree to it, I just have a hard time believing he was asked in the first place! And yet I don't think I just imagined it, if only because I didn't know from Bowie at the time, and I don't recall ever even hearing "Changes" before I saw the commercial.

When exactly do you think this commercial aired? Back a few years ago, it seemed like the commercials were quite wholesome with cheesy background music with lyrics about families and telling the truth and what-not.

It must have been about ten years ago. As I remember it, the visual part of the ad had wholesome pictures of kids with puppies and happy people walking in a daisy field and that sort of thing. I think the message of the ad was meant to be a sort of "Don't change, be yourself!" thing.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

[Cerowyn]

Originally posted by edwino
But Bowie is no stranger to odd pairings -- how about him and Bing Crosby in "Little Drummer Boy."

[Nitpick]
It was a duet of "Little Drummer Boy" (sung by Bing Crosby) and "Peace on Earth" (Bowie).
[/Nitpick]

[SPOOFE]

The Mormons offered Bowie so much money for the rights to the song that his brain turned to Jell-O and he accepted.

Was it... GREEN Jell-O? With red punch?

[Ferggie]

DB may not even own the rights to that particular song anymore, y'know. Quite frequently the record company holds the rights. I don't really expect they could get away with that with someone like DB, but who knows.

--Ferg

who just now realized why she keeps singing Ziggy Stardust at work...because she keeps editing stories about a town called Bowie....

[Wendell Wagner]

Lamia writes:

> It must have been about ten years ago. As I remember it,
> the visual part of the ad had wholesome pictures of kids
> with puppies and happy people walking in a daisy field
> and that sort of thing. I think the message of the ad was
> meant to be a sort of "Don't change, be yourself!" thing.

According to your profile, you're a college student. If you're an undergrad who hasn't done other things before college, you're about 20. So you're talking about your memory of something that happened when you were 10. I sure wouldn't trust my memory of a song from a commercial at that age (and you said it was before you knew who Bowie was). Furthermore, the message of the ad you remember doesn't fit with the Mormon commercials I've seen. They tend to be about families doing things together, not about "being yourself." Finally, David Bowie didn't sell bonds for his music till four and a half years ago, well after the time you remember for this commercial, so that can't have anything to do with why the song would be sold for a commercial. Read the article given in the link in askol's post. It specifically says that Bowie controls the rights to all of his songs, so, no, it wasn't somebody other than Bowie making the decision to sell the song.

I've really got to suspect that you're mixing together several different memories of commercials and songs. I've noticed that this happens on this board frequently when people ask about movies that they saw years before as a child. We can never figure out what film it was they saw, and it's usually (I suspect) because they've mixed together memories of several movies or because they've added elements to the plots from their own imagination.

[11811]

Reminds me of a thread I read about 5 years ago...

George W. Bush was just elected president, and Jim Morrison sang at his inauguration...

Everybody wore bell bottoms...