On “Real Love” and JC Penney

A long time reader wrote in recently. “Considering your recent ‘Beatles kick,’ I’m surprised you haven’t blasted JC Penney for their commercial that uses John’s ‘Real Love.’ I don’t know about you, but I’m angry about it.”

Well, to be honest, I hadn’t seen it. And what I’d heard about the commercial — a Christmas commercial for the JC Penney department store that uses a Lennon demo of “Real Love” as its soundtrack — was all second-hand and, truthfully, generally hostile toward the commercial.

Fortunately, I found a link to the commercial.

Sorry, long time reader, I have no problem with the commercial.

It’s cute. It’s not great. “Real Love” doesn’t actually fit the story the commercial tells — a little girl is tormented by bullies in her neighborhood — but the song does sound very good. Indeed, I wouldn’t mind an official release of that version of “Real Love” (as it’s different than the version on Imagine: John Lennon and the version Paul, George, and Ringo worked on over a decade ago).

It’s a good song. If Yoko Ono wants to sell it for a commercial, more power to her. If it gets people buying John Lennon and talking John Lennon, I fail to see how that’s a bad thing.

And, really. It’s a commercial. And it’s cute. And for me, that’s enough.

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

2 thoughts on “On “Real Love” and JC Penney

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *