Product Placement Friday #10: Mother's Pride

I noticed there was some debate in Wednesday's Daktari post about Mother's Pride, with George questioning The Proclaimers...

Mother’s Pride on the table, Batman on TV

A Man in a Suitcase, and Daktari and Skippy

The Proclaimers - Lulu Selling Tea

Mother’s Pride, Misters Reid, not a proper Scottish plain loaf?

Charity Chic was swift to come to the defence of the bread which began life in the north of England but soon spread all across the British Isles...

Mother's Pride is a proper loaf!

So proper, in fact, that they got Dusty Springfield in to sing their praises...

They don't make adverts like that anymore.

Where else can we find Mother's Pride mentioned in song?

Let's start with another Scot...

You with yer brand new shoes and

You with yer greasy hair and

You with your Mother's Pride and poetry

Don't you want to feel the shame?

The Eurythmics - Shame

And then another. Stevie Jackson is the guitarist in Belle & Sebastian. He also released a solo album in 2011 with the superb title (I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson. Who wouldn't want that in their collection?

Sitting with my lunchbox

Plain bread, Mother's Pride

Brown crust on the outside

I couldn't take my eyes off her

She was playing and I was staying pure of heart

Stevie Jackson - Pure Of Heart

We can always rely on Jim Bob to turn product placement into a metaphor for crumbling society...

And the grass grows bluer on the other side

Where the old girls queue for their Mother's Pride

For a slice of life it's a bargain sale

The price is right but the bread is stale

Carter USM - Rubbish

Meanwhile, the Rentals take their passion for a sliced loaf to the extreme...

Why do I have to die for Mother’s Pride?

Why didn’t they tell me before?

The Rentals - Breaking & Breaking & Breaking

While Chrissie Hynde clearly uses it in the boudoir...

I'm potent, baby, I'm potent

Dangerous to the naked eye

Rest your head on this bed of Mother's Pride

And find out why

The Pretenders - Sense Of Purpose

And Damon Albarn only gets his on a Sunday...

Sunday, Sunday here again, tidy attire

You read the color supplement, the TV guide

You dream of protein on a plate, regret you left it quite so late

To gather the family around the table, to eat enough to sleep

And Mother's Pride is your epithet, that extra slice you'll soon regret

So going out is your best bet, then bingo yourself to sleep

Oh that Sunday sleep

Blur - Sunday Sunday

Not all the lyrical references above are pure product placement, of course. The term "mother's pride (and joy)" is commonly used to refer to "the emotion a mother feels when one of her children succeeds in some endeavor, and I rejected quite a few lyrics on the basis that I doubted they'd ever heard of the bread. However, both the artists below grew up in the 60s and 70s and would have been familiar with the brand when they came to name songs after it, even if the songs in question might have more to do with maternal delight than sliced bread. They knew what they were doing, is my point.

Let's start with George... a different George than the one who inspired this post...

That's a pretty emotional tune about loss, one I've not heard in years.

On the other hand, we have a Paul Heaton song that compares Mother's Pride with Father's Pride... and the dads have a lot to answer for.

 

Another slice of product placement next Friday...