Willie Nelson singing for his supper...

WHAAATT!?

C'mon, Willie...

I was startled then downright dismayed...two seconds into a commercial break on CNN, here you come singing "You Were Always On My Mind." for a Fed Ex commercial…."Willie Nelson x FedEx | Delivering for Earth"

What are  you thinking?

Your voice belongs in lots of places, from Farm Aid that you founded in 1985 to Honky Tonk road houses, but this Fed Ex business is a bridge too far.

The only damn thing that will make me feel at all better is if every penny Fed Ex pays you goes straight to the United States Revenuers to pay for your federal taxes this year. We all remember what happened in 1990 when the IRS raided your home, seized your  possessions and auctioned them off to pay a $16.7 million dollar tax debt.

You've never been short on telling us what's on your mind. I'm not entitled to do anything but listen to your vast and adventurous catalog of songs but I sure would like to know why oh why you agreed to hitch your wagon to Fed Ex.

You support environment causes and farmers who depend on a stable environment.

The Fed Ex commercial touts its commitment to reducing its carbon imprint  but hey, FedEx had more than 200,000 motorized vehicles in its fleet in 2019. To its credit it added 2944 electric vehicles that included delivery trucks, forklifts and airport ground service equipment.

Fine and dandy, but FedEx's airline cargo division boasts a huge fleet of 691 aircraft, twice as many as Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, and nearly three times as many as British Airways.as of 2017. In 2018, it's estimated that global aviation – which includes both passenger and freight – emitted 1.04 billion tonnes of CO2. This represented 2.5% of total CO2 emissions in 2018. Aviation emissions have doubled since the mid-1980s. That ain't hay.

As my dear readers have figured out after watching tons of hours of TV since March 2020, the songs pitched to sell product aim for our hearts then make a break our our wallets or try to improve our opinion of the aspirations of the corporation.

Hearing a song by Willie or Smokey Robinson transports us to the first time we heard it, who we were with, what we were doing, and the world in which we were living at the time... a cagey strategy to co-opt our buying choices by playing on my emotions.                       

Corporations began to capitalize it in 1926 when they knew most of America was tuned into their radios. Since March 2020 most of us have been glued to our TVs. Branding by using songs deeply embedded in our consciousness is a sneaky, powerful soft sell. Not fair. But effective on TV.

Willie, maybe Fed Ex delivers your monthly supply of weed.

For god's sake, grow your own.

PS

Amanpour & Company interview shows Willie's amazing memory

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/legendary-musician-willie-nelson-his-letters-america-nie80g/

 

 
 
 

 


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