Nick Drake’s “From The Morning” used for AT&T’s latest ad campaign.
This new commercial, showing giant orange blankets covering US landmarks such as Hollywood, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, and the gateway arch in St. Louis has a familiar soundtrack to Nick Drake fans.
“From The Morning” from Drakes classic LP, “Pink Moon” is no stranger to recent commercial mining. Universally ignored upon it’s release in 1974, a Volkswagen ad used the title track earlier this decade in a commercial that sold a lot of cars and renewed mainstream interest in Drake’s small but staggering body of work.
This latest ad should help sell a lot of phones and service plans. More importantly to music fans, it may also prove to widen Drake’s fanbase the way the Volkswagen commercials did. While some may have a high minded approach about the song being used as an ad, my feeling is that if Nick Drake’s work can endure and his family can receive some of the money and fame he never experienced during his lifetime, then I’m all for it.