YES, YOUR EMINENCE

Is there anyone else who suppresses a chuckle every time one of those GMC truck ads comes on? I’m referring to the ones that are backed by The Who playing “Eminence Front.” It’s one of my favorite songs from the Who’s latter-day canon, but it seems to be misplaced as the anthem for a TV commercial selling motor vehicles.

Those ads remind me of when Ronald Reagan invoked Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” during a campaign speech in 1984:

“America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts; it rests in the message of hope in songs so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.”

Obviously, Reagan and his clueless staffers had never bothered to look any deeper than the song’s kinda-sorta patriotic sounding title, because had they ever listened to the lyrics they would have found precious little to resonate with their “It’s Morning Again in America” campaign theme. Springsteen’s song is a working class lament, and its refrain - Born in the USA! - is a cynical counterpoint to the story of Vietnam veterans who suffered through the war only to become disaffected and marginalized upon their return home.

And so here we are, thirty-one years down the road, and it looks like, once again, somebody didn’t do his homework. “Eminence Front” is a bitter, cynical song despite its powerful, driving chords:

The sun shines
And people forget
They spray flies as the speedboat glides
And people forget
Forget they’re hiding
The girls smile
And people forget
The snow packs as the skier tracks
And people forget
Forget they’re hiding.

Behind an eminence front
Eminence front - it’s a put on.
It’s eminence front
It’s eminence front - it’s a put on.
An eminence front
Eminence front - it’s a put on.
Eminence front
It’s eminence front
It’s eminence front - it’s a put on.
It’s a put on
It’s a put on
It’s a put on

Come and join the party
Dress to kill
Won’t you come and join the party
Dress to kill.
Dress to kill.

The drinks flow
People forget
That big wheel spins, the hair thins
People forget
Forget they’re hiding
The news slows
People forget
The shares crash, hopes are dashed
People forget
Forget they’re hiding.

Behind an eminence front
An eminence front - it’s a put on
It’s just an eminence front
An eminence front - it’s a put on.
An eminence front
An eminence front- it’s a put on.
Eminence front
It’s eminence front - it’s a put on.

It’s a put on
It’s a put on
It’s a put on
It’s a put on

Come on join the party
Dress to
Come on join the party
Dress to
Come on join the party
Dress to
Come on join the party
Dress to kill
Dress yourself to kill.

It’s about wealthy hedonists with their drugs and expensive toys, poseurs who hide their problems behind a façade - an eminence front. Possibly they could use a GMC truck as one of those expensive toys, eh?

Does anyone else wonder about those ads, or is it just crazy old me?