No Dave, you've definitely heard more than two Elton John songs
Musings on nutsack moisturiser, Elton John, and why my mate Dave is absolutely full of it
My mate Dave claims to only know two Elton John songs. One of them’s Candle in the Wind, and he refuses to be drawn on the second one.
Alt least that’s what he claimed in the group chat as we all sat round our TVs watching Reg Dwight absolutely boss it in front of 200,000 people at Glastonbury. I think he was bullshitting for attention.
Obviously as the set progressed through banger after banger, Benny and the Jets, into Crocodile Rock, into Rocketman, via Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, I’m Still Standing and Tiny Dancer, it turned out Dave did in fact know more than two Elton John songs.
Course he does. Everyone knows more than two Elton John songs. Just like everyone knows more than two Beatles songs.
Not because we’re a nation of Elton and Beatles fans necessarily, but because they’re ever-present. They’re the pop-culture foundations1 of everything else people listen to.
And because they’ve always been there, we just gloss over the excellence and the excitement of them, and never give them a second thought.
We’re all so focused on the new, the next big thing, the next great song, the next breakthrough band that we just breeze past what’s already there, already great and that already works.
It’s the pop culture equivalent of spending all your time chasing the next big social media craze, the next great marketing meme, the next breakthrough platform instead of stepping back and taking the time to focus on what’s already there, already great and already working.
Is this a roundabout way of saying good copywriting is the equivalent of Elton John or The Beatles? Yeah.
There’s a reason that as all the social media gurus and directory marketing agencies and TikTok mavens fall by the wayside, copywriters are still standing.
Something mint - no bullshit bollock balm
I’m currently trialling an app called Readly. It gives you access to newspapers and magazines from all over the world for a tenner a month. And that means unfettered access to print ads from all over the world.
Like this, from Four Four Two magazine. Dr. Balls’ moisturiser is competing for eyeballs with brands like Nivea (the official men’s skincare partner of some Premier League cash cow or other). So how do they do it?
By taking one use for their product - smearing it upon one’s nutsack, apparently - and leaning into it with a great no-nonsense tone of voice.
From the product name, Fresh Bollocks, to the old-school strapline of “An Absolute Joy to Use,” everything about Dr Balls’ messaging positions it as a down-to-earth, no nonsense product that’s much more real and less polished than your Niveas and the like.
And “As well as your bollocks, it’s perfectly suitable for face and body use.” is one of the finest straight-talking lines I’ve seen in a while.
Even if I’d have gone with “Smear it on your nuts, smear it on your nose” as an alternative.
So are The Strokes. Don’t @ me.