SELLING ‘REVOLUTION’

I read with interest and revulsion Patrick Goldstein’s Pop Eye item (May 10) about the licensing of the original Beatles’ recording of the song “Revolution” to sell Nike sports shoes.

You can accuse me, at 37, of suffering the onset of “OFS” (Old Fogey Syndrome). But my memories of the extraordinary delight and enjoyment associated with Beatles songs 20 years ago is something I do not want to be desecrated by the crass graffiti of Nike spraying its name on top of the Beatles’ own recordings.

No amount of self-serving yuppie-new-age doublespeak by Nike and/or their ad agency can convince me that this isn’t another smug example of some hypocrite drawing a mustache on the “Mona Lisa” and passing it off as revisionist Pop Art.

The decision to permit this use (read: defilement) came from the publishing administrator, Michael Jackson. I’m enormously sorry to see that anyone who allegedly cared enough for the Beatles publishing legacy to pay $43 million for it actually sees it as nothing but a goose to lay more golden eggs to make Egg McMuffins.

What next, Michael? How about licensing “Baby You Can Drive My Car” to Yugo? “Here Comes the Sun” to Coppertone? “She’s a Woman” to Avon? “When I’m 64” to Metropolitan Life? “Golden Slumbers” to Sominex?

Or, perhaps to cash in on the current consciousness about “safe sex,” maybe the makers of Trojans would like to license “All My Loving”!

ANDREW TETON

Santa Barbara