by The Jayhawks
~ Songs from commercials ~
I remember The Jayhawks from their appearance on the Sweet Relief benefit album back in the early ’90s. They were sort of an alt-country band before Wilco and Old 97’s made the format more generally acceptable. There were a couple of songs I liked but then they dropped off the map for a few years and I didn’t go looking for them.
Then VH1 had a series of commercials promoting the channel’s attempt to get back to actually showing videos, which, in the days before YouTube, was kind of needed. One of the songs was “Grazing in the Grass”, but unfortunately for VH1, Old Navy was using that song in an ad campaign of their own and they sort of canceled each other out.
One of VH1’s other commercials was this one, which used the chorus about “gonna be a big star” over a variety of lesser-known acts. I recognized the singer’s voice, but it sounded a little too peppy to be The Jayhawks and I was surprised to find out that it was in fact them.