The Audi Super Bowl Ad’s Very Fitting Music

I fully agree with Marlo’s take on the Audi “Green Police” Super Bowl ad. It well parodies environmental zealots’ authoritarian instincts, while at the same time suggesting that, with the Audi A3 TDI, it won’t be so bad. Still, I take it as a good sign that this kind of ridicule of green activists has gone mainstream to the point of being featured in an ad during the most watched televised event of the year.

That said, there’s a little detail that should give it further resonance: the music. The ad’s use of Cheap Trick’s “Dream Police” — changed to “green police” — is subtly appropriate. The song is the lament of a guy who thinks he’s going crazy because of a group of sadistic cops who persecute him in his dreams — and, like green zealots, never relent. This part is particularly fitting:

I lie asleep, they’re wide awake, they won’t leave me alone.

They don’t get paid to take vacations or let me alone.

They spy on me, I try to hide, they won’t leave me alone.

They persecute me, they’re the judge and jury all in one.

Of course, as Richard Morrison notes, CEI came up with a similar idea a couple of years ago, with the Department of Pre-Regulation. Videos of the Audi ad, the Department of Pre-Regulation, and Cheap Trick’s original song are below.