Would any of you here happen to remember a Volvo ad from 1986 that had "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as its background music? The September before, the Swedish car maker's ad agency wanted to use the portions of the song with the London Bach Choir doing their thing, such as the opening and toward the end.

This version of the TV spot in question didn't last very long and as you all know, Allen Klein's ABKCO held the copyright to the recording.

~Ben



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-17 08:46 by BrianJones1969.

This is what I've found:

"We wanted the commercial to cut to the Rolling Stones song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Sometimes you get what you need- it was perfect! We developed it that way, and it was ready to go. Our ad agency called the Rolling Stones’ music agent, and told them that we would like to get their song to use in our commercial. The Stones and publishers didn’t disagree, but they told us the fee would be $1 million.
While Volvo is a company with a huge brand, they have a modest budget. What they wanted may have been fair, but it was light years beyond what we could afford. We were crushed. Apparently what happened, as I wasn’t in on this at the beginning – they hired a composer and pick-up musicians, and wrote a song that sounded like that Rolling Stones song, and had similar lyrics.
The commercial went on television, and all of a sudden, they got a call from the Stones’ representatives who said, “Hey- that music is WAY too close. We’re not saying that you have to kill your commercial, but you cannot re-write our song for your commercial, and have the words be parallel and the tempo be the same.”
So we ended up settling with the Stones and re-writing the soundtrack for the commercial. That was the closest I ever came to meeting the Rolling Stones… when the letter came in that said, “Cease and desist!”

[blog.hemmings.com]