Sheryl Crow's 'Winding Road' to Subaru

Former Jingle Singer Glad to Be Part of Pop Consciousness

Posted by Charlie Moran on 02.07.08 @ 04:00 PM

Before she was a Michael Jackson backup singer, Sheryl Crow sang jingles. In fact, one of her first recording gigs was for fast food, when producer Jay Oliver coaxed her into singing, "It's a good time for the great taste of McDonald's."

Sheryl Crow's happy about the Subaru spot, but isn't doing too many spots these days.

So, how could she have been apprehensive about her famous 2006 Subaru commercial (after the jump) featuring "Every Day is a Winding Road"? In an interview with Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air" this week, she explains:

"I get a bit itchy about things like that. And I'm sure most artists do. When I was coming up, an artist would never have sold a song to a commercial. That would be the quintessential selling-out, and I think when Sting got in the Jaguar and Bob Dylan was in the Victoria Secret commercial, it felt like 'okay the floodgates have been opened and now that our industry is really suffering so badly, the best way to get marketing dollars and to have your music heard is through a commercial.

TV is where it's at, so we bit the bullet and did it, and it was interesting, I mean I would hear it all the time, and my fear was that people would just associate the song with a car commercial -- that remains to be seen -- but you know, in many ways, it really managed to once again cement that song into peoples' conciousness."

Not long after that campaign started, Crow fell into the shimmery arms of Revlon, who sponsored her tour as she brought blond Colorist hair dye on the road with her. She also appeared in an ad for Self magazine and a Martin Scorsese-directed spot for American Express. Now, with the recent release of her moodier album "Detours," she's playing smaller venues and thinking smaller. She's still committed to environmental causes but insists the "one sheet of toilet paper" thing was just a joke.