I hate commercials when they use the doorbell sound. There’s a Dominos commercial out now where the doorbell is rung on someone’s house about 15 times in a row… my dog goes bananas each time.
i hate when those commercials come on pbs or npr right after they’ve just spent ten minutes begging money off me. they try and make it not sound like a commercial by using that public broadcasting voice.
I don’t mind the doorbell, but hearing the surf music which follows it FOR THE 773rd TIME IN ONE EVENING is enough to drive anybody batty.
A few years back I was about ready to blow my TV away when Toyota had those ads featuring the song “Everyday People” running every three freakin’ minutes!
Didn’t anybody at the ad agencies bother to notice that even your favorite song will become loathsome to you if it’s played so frequently?
Along the lines of CCR’s Fortunate Son, the song “American Woman” was used as a rah-rah song for a sports company supporting (I believe) the US Women’s Soccer team.
I laughed when I saw it because they even included the line “stay away from Me-hee!” in the commercial.
The guy who wrote it laughed and said, whatever floats their boat as long as there’s money to be made.
American Woman is used in a lot of American commercials.
Maybe if they had written it as
American woman, get away from me
Canadian woman, come closer, baby
people would have gotten the point?
Nah. They would have just repeated “american woman” in a loop.
Along the same lines as Lust for Life, but much worse:
Last night I heard the opening of The Stooges “TV Eye” used in a Nissan Exterra commercial. “TV Eye” is one of my two or three favorite songs of all time AND the rockin’est rock song a rocker ever rocked. (or should I say “rawk”?) At least the “Lust for Life” thing is deliciously ironic–the company who wants to promote a sqeaky-clean image using a song about “liquor and drugs.” Anyways, part of me died.
Funny thing about John lennon. When Revolution first was used for Nike, she said he must be rolling over in his grave to think that his work was being used commercially.
I later came across this quote:
“Somebody said to me, ‘But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.’ That’s a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool.’”
-Paul McCartney, pointing out that anything Beatle-related would be an instant hit
I left out a part of my annecdote. The “she” in the second sentence was a friend of mine who liked John Lennon. I should have mentioned that in the FIRST sentence. Not that it really matters… 
A bit off the subject, but I do recall for the 2000 Republican National Convention, that song was used to introduce Laura Bush.
"American Woman…
I don’t need your ghetto scenes,
I don’t need your war machines,
Your colored lights will hypnotize,
Go sparkle in someone else’s eyes!
American Woman,
Stay away from me!"
Obviously nobody ever thought to review those lyrics before using it as her theme song. None of the Republicans seemed to get it either.
Just like the Reagan administration didn’t get that Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” was not a rah-rah patriotic song, but rather a protest song about how badly the government and society in general treated Vietnam war veterans.