# Cover Versions: I'm a man on the edge **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 2, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cover-versions-im-a-man-on-the-edge/703400 "2014-11-02T22:49:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cover-versions-im-a-man-on-the-edge/703400/1 "2014-11-02T22:49:54Z")
I’m giving you all one link here but don’t say I didn’t warn you. [The John Lewis abominations](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/12/john-lewis-christmas-ads-2007-2013) Now of course my point is already proven here but…indulge me. You all know this phenomenon. You don’t need any other examples to tell you what you already know. There is a plague in this land and its name is “wet, breathy, shit, counter-contextual, shorn of all passion and meaning, cover versions of otherwise fine songs” In the UK we have had several years of “epic” (I use the word advisedly…i.e. wrongly) Christmas adverts for major stores such as John Lewis that pretty much defy description and demand scorn, hate and solid punches to the nuts. Listen to the link above…go on damn you, listen. Then come back and explain it to me. For fucks sake they take Frankie’s “the power of love”, use it for a Christmas advert…AND MAKE IT LESS CHRISTMASSY! Bastards to a man. Not just Christmas though…oh fuck no! I nearly upchucked when I heard a citroen advert using a fucked-up version of the Jam’s “That’s Entertainment”. Ah yes…of course. Nothing says “economical French hatchback” more than a cynical and biting tirade by a mod-influenced, quasi-punk, politically socialist three piece against the urban hell of a proto-Thatcher England. “lights going out and a kick in the balls!” is obviously shorthand for the automatic headlights and the low-down grunt of the punchy engine…fuck me, I’m too old for this shit…and that’s swearing (as my dear old granny used to say). I imagine Paul Weller sitting in front of the telly counting huge piles of used notes from selling his back-catalogue, hearing the first “haunting” notes of that bastard-child and, slowly, collapsing into a weeping wreck with his head in his hands as the camera pulls slowly back. I don’t need validation here, I am obviously right. I just needed to vent. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cover-versions-im-a-man-on-the-edge/703400)._