Bye Bye Black Sheep
While driving down Sunset Blvd today, I encountered a massive ad on the side of a building. It was a huge, shiny black SUV (don’t ask me what kind, cars all look alike to me) and the slogan above it was Bye Bye Black Sheep.
Now, obviously this is Baa Baa Black Sheep and Bye Bye Blackbird put together. But I’m wondering if the average American recognizes either phrase anymore. I mean, I know them because I was raised by my grandparents. My cultural influences span the entire 20th century. My Grandpa used to actually shuffle around the house singing negro spirituals to himself, despite the fact that he was white, and racist as Archie Bunker. Whenever Grandma called him to dinner. He’d sing, “I’m coming… my head is bending low….” I think that was a rather sarcastic commentary on Grandma being the obvious power source of the house, but nevertheless. My grandmother sang Bye Bye Blackbird to me, and Mom recited the nursery rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep.
But I tend to assume that what is true for me is probably not true for most people. Heck, even the neighbors thought we were weird. How can something that is so familiar to my dirt-road Michigan upbringing crop up on the side of a skyscraper in Hollywood?
Are these things really part of the American collective unconscious? Does anyone under 50 besides me recognize these references? Or is this a very expensive car, probably being marketed for wealthy 50 year olds, and it wouldn’t matter if every 20 year old in LA glanced up and thought, “Whoa, is that a racial remark?”
I wish I knew what drives ad executives.
