All you need is Luvs

The Beatles song "All you need is love" has been licensed by Procter & Gamble for use in a new Luvs diaper commercial.

Some Beatles fans, who appreciated the messages of pacifism in many of the band's lyrics, aren't appreciative of the tune that preaches peace being licensed for use in conjunction with something as frivolous as baby poop, especially during a time of war.

I recently ran across this in a story on Yahoo News:

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Among the objections is that the idealistic song, popular in the counterculture "Summer of Love" era and among Vietnam War opponents, is being used at the time of another war, in Iraq, to evoke soiled diapers.

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"For people who feel that political connection, it comes off as kind of a callous action," said Angela Natividad, coeditor of adrants.com, a marketing commentary site. "You've got the Beatles, which draws like, religious feelings, and you've got the war."

I disagree. I believe that diapers and peace songs are terrific metaphors for what our brave men and women are fighting for, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Many Beatles fans say they just don't like seeing Beatles songs being used for trivial things. The sad reality is that, unless you make your living at it, music is a relatively trivial thing. Sure, music entertains us and provides the soundtrack to many of our lives, but in the end it plays a relatively minor role in the big picture.

There will be those who disagree, but the influence of pro-peace, or pacifist songs, is wildly overrated. As an avid listener to classic rock from the '60s on up, I appreciate much of the music, but I've never once figured that it would change the world. Why? Because music, particularly music with messages of "peace," tends to preach to the choir.

We need look no further than the Beatles and their families for examples. Just a few years ago, Yoko Ono, surviving wife of Beatle John Lennon, rented a billboard in London, which read: "Imagine all people living life in peace." Is the world that much closer to peace now that cashiers at Piccadilly Square gift shops and bellboys at The Conrad have read the message on a daily basis?

But why put these billboards in London, New York, Tokyo, etc.? Why not put them where they really belong – in Afghanistan, Somalia, Darfur, Iraq, North Korea and in the backyards of drug cartels? That's an easy question to answer: Because Ono would get killed, thrown in jail for life or, worse, sentenced to listen to one of her own albums.

Ono has also twice performed something called "Cut Piece." This is a "performance" in which audience members come onstage and clip off pieces of her clothing until Ono is nearly naked. Does all of this accomplish or prove anything, other than Newton's Law?

Since the Beatles released "All you need is love," and many other songs of peace, Yoko's husband John sang the pacifist anthems "Imagine" and "Give Peace A Chance," and the couple's "bed in," the world saw a continuation of hostilities in Vietnam, the tragedy at the Olympic games in Munich, the hostage crisis in Iran, embassy bombings, hijackings, continuous violence in the Middle East, Sept. 11 and constant terrorist attacks around the world. Why isn't it working? The answer is simple: Terrorists, criminals, warmongers and despots clearly don't listen to FM radio, read back issues of "Rolling Stone" and attend Paris theater nearly enough.

Songs, billboards, bed-ins and the rest are mere symbolism, so why can't the Luv's diaper ad act as pro-peace symbolism as well? It's worth a try. A pro-peace song as applied to a baby diaper advertisement is the perfect analogy as it concerns current goings-on in the world.

When you change a baby's diaper, what are you doing? Preventing the excrement from spreading, removing a big stink, tossing it out and making the area clean, comfortable and peaceful again. Our troops are doing, and have done in the past, just that. They have made great sacrifices for all of us so our kids can grow up in a country free from terrorists on every street corner, all while some of us go on pretending that a song has any influence whatsoever over the real reason we we're free to listen to "All you need is love" in peace.
So grab those diapers, crank up the Beatles and support the troops!

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