FAQ: Your Favorite ’70s Song Is in Our Prescription Drug Commercial

Q: Why my favorite song?
Your favorite song’s lyrics were either generic or changeable enough that we could capitalize on your nostalgia. We figured we could hold your attention for ten seconds longer than our usual arthritis medication commercials, where people do light physical activity like bowling with family, making pottery, or line dancing, while Muzak plays and slowly signifies an improvement in their lives.

Q: Couldn’t you have written your own song? Or reused that Greatest Showman one?
Original songs are more of a weight-loss drug’s game, and we can only use “This Is Me” in so many ways. So now, ’70s music is the soundtrack of COPD, bipolar depression, and more.

Q: Wait, which medicine are you even using these songs for?
All kinds. Every kind. Name a disorder, an illness, or weird rash, and we’ll play “Go Your Own Way,” “It’s Magic,” “And the Beat Goes On,” and on and on. You know, things people in your age group would like. People who walk their dog while waving to neighbors on the porch, or hike on a remarkably clear and branchless path. Like we said, your age group.

Q: What do you mean, my “age group”?
No one’s told you yet? Sorry, you’re old.

Q: But I could hypothetically be a hip young person with excellent taste who just enjoys “Dancing in the Moonlight”?
No, no hip young person says “hip young person.” And our algorithm tells us you’re at least old enough to complain about your knees and the state of your downstairs equipment, if you catch our drift.

Q: I don’t catch your drift.
We’re trying to say you have erectile dysfunction.

Q: Okay, fine. Yeah. I can’t get an erection. But how am I going to explain to my kids that the song that defined my adolescence is now being used to sell heart meds and boner pills?
Take them into your garden (you do garden, right? Our research on people with osteoporosis says that you garden) and pick a flower. Tell them that flower is a symbol of your youth. Over the course of the next few days, that flower will wilt, wither, and die. It’s kind of like that.

Q: So what, I garden? Fine, I’ll show them the flower, but isn’t that metaphor a little heavy-handed?
Isn’t “Dancing in the Moonlight” a little cliché for a favorite song?

Q: Fuck you. I’m cool.
Then why are we using your favorite song to sell, as you put it, “heart meds and boner pills”?

Q: Okay, I give in. I’m old, I get it. Are you happy?
We’ll be happy when you ask your doctor which prescriptions are right for you. It’s okay if you can’t remember the exact name. Just tell them what your favorite song is, and they’ll know.

Q: I have more than one favorite song, so how do I stop this from happening again?
You can’t.

Q: What do you mean that I can’t?
We mean you can’t. How do you stop a runaway train? How do you stop the pouring, pouring rain? How do you stop the night turning to day?

Q: Aren’t those the lyrics to a James Brown song?
Yes, they are. Look out, we’re coming for your favorite ’80s hits next. Eczema commercials are about to get super rad.