A great post on the commercial (literally) exploitation of the Beatles music… what got me is the horrifying thought that one day this could happen to U2’s music…

Perhaps my fondness for the Beatles is slipping into dogmatic obsession, but I’m really bugged by the sloppy sublicensing their music is currently being subjected to. Adweek picks up on my ennui: first was the lame homonym substitution by Target of “Good Buy” for “Goodbye” that stripped the song “Hello, Goodbye” entirely of its poignancy; now comes a diaper ad that, pardon my french, craps all over the song that the Beatles considered important enough to invite all their friends to perform with them for a worldwide satellite broadcast: “All You Need Is . . .”–wait for it–“Luvs.(tm)”

Come on, people, now. This is the Beatles song that most explicitly articulates John Lennon’s worldview; only “Imagine,” perhaps, gets more straightforward. Someone gave Luvs(tm) the right to this travesty, and that someone ought to have his or her face rubbed in it.
Someday Tupac and U2 are going to have to endure this kind of sacrilege of their canon too. I’d like to see Bono, in fact, fight the power here: “The diaper industry stole this song from the Beatles; we’re stealing it back.