I woke up this morning with a voice in my head. It was saying “It makes life [pause] a little easier.” (I didn’t mind hearing it. I could definitely stand having life be a little easier just now.)
The problem: I have heard this voice saying this statement before. In real life, not just in my head. But where, I can’t figure out.
My best guess is that it’s a tag line from the end of a TV commercial. It has that feel. I wasn’t able to narrow it down via Google (it is not a Jack-in-the-Box commercial, however).
Best guesses: if it IS a TV commercial, and if it wasn’t a nationwide thing, it was probably common in either the early seventies in the Midwest or in the mid-eighties in the Northeast, because those are the times and places when I was most likely to watch TV. Or it could be a radio commercial, in which case…it could be from anywhere.
It’s also possible I’m misremembering the exact words. I don’t THINK it’s “We make life a little easier,” or “They make life…” or just plain “Make life a little easier.” But I’ve been wrong before about this kind of thing.
The voice is light, not identifiable to me at present as either male or female. “A little easier” is pronounced “a little easi-uh,” at least from my hard-R dialect perspective.
No one I know IRL seems to have any idea what I’m talking about. Does anyone here? Or am I fated to keep hearing this voice until Kingdom Come or the Mayan Judgment Day, whichever comes first?? Help!
I’m no help, but since reading your post, I keep hearing that phrase in the Allstate guy’s voice (Dennis Haysbert), even though you said it was a light voice.
Rhiannon – even though I said a light voice, I could easily be mistaken. One thing I’ve learned in the course of my thousands of days on this planet is that memory is surprisingly often wrong, wrong, wrong. <sigh>
It’s probably not what you’re thinking of, since the lyrics don’t match exactly, but “Mother’s Little Helper” by the Rolling Stones and “Hey, Jude” by the Beatles both popped into my mind.
I couldn’t find the original commercial, but about 1973, there was a TV spot for the Jack-in-the-Box burger chain that featured a cute little kid singing this theme, or trying to. Everyone thought he was so heart-tuggingly appealing! Apparently this pop song was recorded to cash in on the popularity of the ad.
When I read the phrase, I get an image of a sick or severely depressed woman talking about something like her Oxycodone perscription, with a very quiet, withdrawn, soul-crushingly depressing “it makes life… a little easier”.
I have no idea if I got that from the same place as the OP or if I’m just a terrible person.
