Yo La Tengo – PBS Commercial

Yo La Tengo
Our Way To Fall

A couple of years back you might have noticed a really cool PBS commercial “interstitial” that featured a girl waking up early in the morning and heading over to the family barn to shine a flashlight on a rooster to see if that would make it crow. The song featured in the commercial was of course, Yo La Tengo’s “Our Way To Fall” from their awesome CD And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out.

This was a part of a series of PBS promotionals that aired starting around 2000 (I think it’s called the “Stay Curious” campaign.) They still show some of these spots, including “Photo Booth” in which a guy takes tons of pictures of himself in an automatic photo booth singing the words to a Caruso song and then uses them as a sort of flip-book so that he can see himself sing along to the real music. But I haven’t heard the Yo La Tengo one for awhile now.

Of course, Yo La Tengo is no stranger to TV and Film spots, appearing in “I Shot Andy Warhol” (where they actually appeared as the Velvet Underground”) as well as composing The Sounds of the Sounds of Science, the score to French filmmaker Jean Painleve’s undersea documentaries.

With some more popular bands, you kind of wonder about their motives when they decide to make commercials or film music. It’s the sell-out factor. However, as far as I’m concerned they can’t include Yo La Tengo’s songs enough on TV, and I don’t think anyone will begrudge them a little success after many years toiling in underground obscurity.

by Palebear