Recently I spent a week in Las Vegas, you know, that place I like to be in. No doubt you’ll want to hear about the drinking to excess, the slot machine action, whether I met Mike Tyson*, stole a white tiger, won/lost a million bucks or got married to, by, with, under, or as a green card proxy for Elvis.

But instead I’m going to talk about something I enjoyed in my hotel room. No, not a hooker smothered in maple syrup and speckled with peanut butter M&Ms, I mean the Five Dollar Foot Long song from the Subway commercial**. You know, on the television. Here it is in its bright, Beach Boysesque glory:

Catchy, innit? The first time I saw it I was on my way out for the evening, but just stood in front of the screen, slack-jawed, unaware of all my gambling money tumbling out of my sequinned evening bag and jingling round my patent stacked heels. Look, here’s one with Hula girls:

The Spanish language version jauntily deviates from the theme with a melodic wall-of-sound approach to distract you from the many, many syllables:

The German version, however, is just a scary shambles:

And this jazz handsy, Glee-style one doesn’t quite hit the mark:

But it’s the song, the original song that sticks in your head – the bouncy bouncy bass, the soothing lo-fi harmonies, the way the “loooong” bit slides up a key and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, the fact that it’s about A SANDWICH. It makes me happy. If it were my morning alarm my passive aggression would disappear and I’d be birdsong and butterflies all day long.

I sang the Five Dollar Foot Long song all through Vegas. I sang it at the bar, I sang it at the slot machine, I sang it in the jacuzzi, and I sang it on the rollercoaster at New York New York. All right, I sang it near the rollercoaster at New York New York. On the rollercoaster I mostly screamed profanities.

But I digress.

My point is, once you’ve heard it, it’s stuck in your brain forever. And OBVIOUSLY it is an evil marketing ploy:

“We didn’t want any blabbing,” say Jerry Cronin and Jamie Mambro of MMB [the ad agency behind the series]. “It was just, let’s see how many times we can say ‘five dollar foot-long.’ Let’s mention it as many times as possible without making someone hurt us. We wanted to make sure no one would miss the message.” They quickly realized the best way to accomplish that goal [...] was to embed the phrase in a jingle.

But I don’t care! I like it. And millions of other easily-swayed, key demographic type people don’t care, either. Check out this dude – he has an awesome beard and COMPLETELY ESSENTIAL leather studded armbands, and is introducing us to the concept of ‘acoustic black metal’. He doesn’t care:

Look at this baby! (Actually, pause this baby, and start watching at 0:26) This baby doesn’t care that it’s an evil marketing ploy:

The thing is, just like Baby Dude and Acoustic Death Metal Guy, I didn’t fall for Subway’s cunning ruse! I didn’t buy a stupid big sandwich, I just enjoyed the song. FOR FREE! Ha! Then I went and spent a bunch of money in a casino. TAKE THAT, CAPITALISM!

And, just in case you’re feeling short-changed by me wittering on about a sandwich commercial and not giving up the Vegas goods, here’s a picture of me drinking a yard of margarita (melon flavoured):


And here I am, ordering a hooker smothered in maple syrup and speckled with peanut butter M&Ms** from room service, with my stolen white tiger:


If you really want it, there’s more Vegasness in my Flickr feed. Now, be off with you.

♫ Five. Five dollar. Five dollar foot loooooooong…. ♫

* Actually, you know what? Mike Tyson in lighthearted Vegas caper films? Not that funny, when you think about it.
** I do not work for Subway. Although I am aware that, like the mother in The Ring, I have passed on the curse to you.
*** It’s okay, Mom. I took an antihistamine.