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Is the Travel Industry Ruining Our Music?
The Travel Critic · April 26, 2000

George Gershwin must be rolling in his grave.

Air travelers on the world's largest carrier will never listen to his enduring 1923 tune "Rhapsody in Blue" the same way. Even now, after United Airlines wisely jettisoned its "rising" advertising campaign following a surge in customer service complaints, its image makers remain captivated by "Rhapsody." They play it on every TV commercial, every radio spot and on every in-flight briefing announcement.

Are they destroying the song? Maybe, says David Goetzl, who covers the travel industry for Ad Age magazine.

"I think classical music fans feel that the music should be separated from commercialism," he observes. "But I haven't heard any widespread anger about the use of Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' in particular."

That's probably because people aren't completely aware that the travel industry is undermining our music. Take TWA, which uses the 1848 Joseph Brackett composition "Simple Gifts" in its promotions.

"We've been very consistent with our use of it," says TWA spokesman Jim Brown. "We want everyone who hears that melody to think of TWA."

TWA would like passengers to think about its "simple gifts" - like getting them to their destination punctually. Indeed, the carrier chalked up the best on-time rating in the business last year, according to the United States Department of Transportation. TWA would not like its passengers to think of unwelcome gifts, like its third-highest rate of mishandled baggage complaints (5.38 per 1,000).

"When you hear a song in the context of an ad, you're seeing beautiful images," says George Belch, a professor of marketing at San Diego State University. "You're shown pictures of first class, not cattle class. But you have to wonder if a negative experience carries over to a person's perception of the song itself."

For example, when you hear the Franke Previte song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" in all-inclusive resort Sandals' ads - the tune made popular in the 1987 film "Dirty Dancing" - and then you have a lousy vacation, will you ever listen to it the same way?

"That's really the essence of this postmodern debate," says Matthew Felling, a director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington. "Do duplications and copies remove any of the gravity of the original product?

"Do we look at the Mona Lisa any different if she's holding a Coke can?" he asks. "I happen to think that it cheapens the original. It makes less serious its vehicle when it's done with a very base motivation, such as to sell."

I wouldn't dare compare "Time of My Life" to "Rhapsody in Blue" or "Simple Gifts" - even if Previte's tune did win an Academy Award for best song. Still, I wonder if the travel industry's use of these melodies, contemporary or classical, is a positive thing.

After all, "Rhapsody in Blue" is part of the American musical lexicon; "Simple Gifts" is a hymn; and "Time of My Life" is a well-loved wedding song. By acquiring the rights to them, the travel business might be doing more harm than good.

"People can start developing negative attitudes toward the music, especially if the songs are being overused," says Deepak Sirdeshmukh, an assistant professor of marketing at Case Western Reserve's Weatherhead School of Management in Cleveland. "If people start hating the song, you run the risk of the brand being affected."

This all kind of reminds me of the 1962 Anthony Burgess novel "A Clockwork Orange," in which the narrator undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his antisocial behavior. The therapy includes conditioning him to react in horror when one of his favorite pieces of music, Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony," is played.

I wonder: How many of us feel a little claustrophobic when we listen to Gershwin? How many of us clamor for our luggage when "Simple Gifts" is broadcast on the radio? Which of us loses his or her appetite when "Time of My Life" is on the CD player?

And then I wonder: Can't the travel industry come up with its own songs?

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.