While making toast for the last several mornings, I haven't been able to get the oldie, "Bread And Butter," by The Newbeats, out of my mind. In short, the protagonist likes bread and butter, as well as toast and jam. He's thankful that his wife (or girlfriend?) remembers this; in fact, his taste for these breakfast foodstuffs looms so large that even when he's betrayed, his reaction is "No more bread and butter. No more toast and jam." Not surprisingly, the tune's cheery dance beat plays down the cheating aspect to focus on the food shortage.
I don't remember "Bread And Butter" being played much on oldies radio stations here, but I remember a TV commercial for an oldies compilation that featured it. Oldies in TV commercials, for some reason, aren't allowed to stand on their own as often as they should; supposedly, people have to dance around to them, often with crazed smiles. Such was the case with "Bread And Butter." Classic rock anthems face a similar fate; instead of letting the songs that people have heard hundreds of times speak for themselves, commercials have to show listeners playing air guitar and/or spouting archaic slang as they listen. Apparently, it isn't enough to just play a well-worn excerpt from a song; at least one listener has to give it the "groovy" or "right on" seal of approval. Heaven forbid that one should simply listen to "Bread And Butter" and make an independent judgment on its merits.
