How many times have you heard a lyric, roared it back to your favourite band or artist at the show only to be mildly devastated when you discover several years later you've been relaying some absolutely fresh cacabollox, worlds away from the artist's original prose?
Come on, we've all done it...
"scuse me while i kiss this guy" - Purple Haze - Jimmy Hendrix
"Sweet dreams are made of cheese" - Sweet Dreams - Eurythmics
"In New York, concrete jungle, wet dream, tomato…" - Empire State Of Mind - Jay Z Feat. Alicia Keys
"You can go with this, you can go with that" - Weapon Of Choice - Fat Boy Slim Feat. Bootsy Collins
And this phenomenon was the story that evolved on LNER's latest ad campaign.
We'd found the perfect track - Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim. A timeless classic, an untouchable, un-remixable clarion call to the dance floor from Fatboy's richly furtive, genre bending late 90s, early 00s oeuvre. And if that wasn't enough it features a totally unique vocal from the king of funk himself, Bootsy Collins.
But the most clever.. well let's say genius... part about this besides it being danceable, fun, energetic, populist AND cool was this - the chorus lyrics are the campaign tagline:
"you can go with this, you can go with that" - we're really good at this sh*t.
Imagine the ruination then upon discovering Bootsy's lyrics were in fact
"you can BLOW with this, you can BLOW with that"
.. whatever that means? (Bootsy later confessed he couldn't actually remember what it meant). Regardless, the entire campaign's tagline was built around the perceived lyric.
So what's a music supervisor with all the eggs on their face to do?
2 options presented themselves... ONE, find another, danceable, catchy, credible, ice cold classic that DOES say "you can go with this, you can go with that" or TWO, the potentially more challenging option of seeking approval from Fatboy to approve a lyric change and for Bootsy to re-record his vocal with alternative lyrics 23 years after the original release.
Well, we did both... the perfect alternative in Black Sheep's Choice Is Yours was presented, but of course, everyone was sold on the original track idea and so, to option two.
Cue another round of artist proposals, role play, cajoling, begging, and terrible impressions of Bootsy Collins, remarkably, we got everyone to align.
Cue quick trip over to Atlanta Georgia to record 4 lines of vocals with the great man himself.
Back in time for breakfast! (no eggs)
