Swiffer Commercial
In 2003, this was used in a commercial for Swiffer wet mops.
In the ad, a woman cleans the house with a Swiffer while doing robotic motions like Devo.
When her daughter, who appears to be a junior-high Goth girl, sees her, she says,
"I hope it's not genetic." Jerry's thoughts: "The concept of that commercial is a generation gap where 'Whip It' is being used as a put-down of the girl's mother.
She's stuck in the '80s and swiffing away to Whip It and the kid thinks she's weird and is embarrassed by her.
It's perfect that while Devo, when we came out we were a critical success and loved by people,
we were pretty much overlooked by radio and MTV.
MTV turned on Devo around 1981 and quit showing stuff and didn't want anything to do with us.
They said, 'Unless your song's a hit, we're not playing your videos.'
What's funny is, we never made any money, and only through publishing now are we making money, ironically for the wrong reason.
But built into Devo was that comment on how society works and how people see things different ways
and there is no one explanation of reality and that people do not share one logical idea of reality.
This just proves it. We don't feel bad about the little bit of money that trickles to us
now that we never got in the first place because they used these songs in a terrible way.
It's almost more subversive because you go, 'This can't be, it's all wrong.'
By misusing it so badly, they've created something that amuses us, entertains us."
Proctor & Gamble, who make the Swiffer, originally had them re-record this for the commercial as "You must swiff it,"
but their lawyers found out that copyrighting "Swiff It" and the product implications down the line could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars,
so they changed the lyrics to "You must Swiffer" so they wouldn't have to copyright "Swiff It."
Because of a bad publishing deal Devo made in 1978, they control only half the rights to their songs.
When they allow their songs to be used in commercials, they insist on re-recording them so they can keep all the performance rights.
In the Swiffer commercial, that is Mothersbaugh's vocal with lyrics written by Proctor & Gamble.
This has also been used in ads for Gateway, Twix and Pringles.
In the Gateway commercial, the chairman of the company is driving an 18-wheeler with the Gateway cow riding shotgun.
The cow produces a CD labeled "Cow Mix," and when they listen to it, this comes on and the chairman and the cow sing along.
That ad is one of Mothersbaugh's favorites.
This was Devo's only hit, but they have a large cult following, and many of their songs have been resurrected for commercials.
Members of Devo started a company called Mutato Muzika (www.mutato.com) that develops music for movies, TV shows and commercials.
Jerry is a successful director, and has worked on videos by Rush, The Foo Fighters, Soundgarden and many others.
(thanks to Jerry and Mark for speaking with us about this song - check out our Devo interview)
This song is playable in Donkey Konga for the Nintendo Gamecube. (thanks, Matthew - Milford, MA)
Senior citizen singers the Del Rubio triplets made this song a big part of their stage show, performing it on acoustic guitars.
They made many TV appearances in the '80s, usually performing in a campy style and wearing skimpy outfits.
The Brian Welch fronted Nu Metal band Love and Death covered this in 2013 for their Between Here & Lost album.
Their version features Matt Baird of the Arkanas hard rock band Spoken. Welch recalled to Noisecreep:
"He was just in town during the recording and Jaren (Rauch, producer) mentioned it.
He said it would be cool to have a guy to scream on there and so I totally tried it.
You wouldn't believe it, at nine in the morning, he got up - you're hearing him with morning voice and everything and we just threw him on there."
(from www.songfacts.com interview)