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
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?
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
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
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?
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
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
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...
