ID a song from this mid to late-90s commercial?

February 17, 2016 5:21 AM

Help me identify this song from a vague memory of a commercial. The timeframe is about mid to late 90s and it was in the USA. I think it was for beer, and the song was foreign (my memory says French but there's no way I would have known that at the time).

This is a question that's been bugging me on and off for about ten years now. I'm starting to wonder if this is actually a commercial that existed or if I'm remembering something incorrectly.

I remember a commercial in the mid to late 90s that most likely used to play in the early evenings. This was the US, and I'm pretty sure it was a beer commercial of some kind. It was a series of clips from an assembly line (bottling plant?) and two clips that I remember were a bunch of bottles on those rolling conveyor belts and someone working in a hair net. The commercial may have been in black and white.

There's a song playing in the background. I remember it was foreign and the language seemed to be French, but that's just a guess. The song, if I'm remembering correctly, was an Edith Piaf-ish number. I don't think it was Je Regrette Rien but it had that sort of quality to it.

Can anyone identify the song from these half-remembered details? Does this commercial sound familiar to anyone else at least? Trying to find info for mid to late 90s on the modern internet is tough, a couple of sites that talked about TV commercials in the 90s didn't have anything matching my memory.

posted by C^3 to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

I don't know it and can't find it, but this another Edith Piaf song that has been used in commercials.
posted by ill3 at 5:31 AM on February 17, 2016

The "French" and "90s" clues makes me think it may have been Stella Artois- playlist of their tv ads here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp5rf0i5ds-pq0nZhjBZEVTIXlaljOwIx
posted by Gratishades at 5:34 AM on February 17, 2016

It's long shot, but is it possible that you're remembering the opening credits of Laverne & Shirley, which prominently feature scenes from a bottling plant? It played in syndication in the evenings in the 90s quite a bit.
posted by telegraph at 11:04 AM on February 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

This commercial doesn't have any of the visual elements you describe, but it is a 1990s beer commercial featuring Edith Piaf music and a young Stephen Fry. Perhaps it ran just before Laverne and Shirley enough times for you to associate it? (another long shot)
posted by 1367 at 11:33 AM on February 17, 2016

Response by poster: Drat, nothing here matches what I'm picturing in my mind's eye (or ear in this case) but I appreciate everyone's help. Thanks guys!
posted by C^3 at 6:08 PM on February 17, 2016

Mod note: Final update from the OP:

So four years after asking this question, I randomly heard the song playing at a French restaurant where I was having lunch this past weekend.

Despite the fact that it had probably been around 25 years since I've last heard this song, I recognized it immediately from the first verse. It's been stuck in my head with made up words for the past couple of decades, and surprisingly the version in my head was pretty close to what the actual song was!

It was C'est Si Bon, specifically the version by Eartha Kitt which was the exact version that was playing at the restaurant. This has spurred me to try and find the actual commercial now that I have the song to go off of, but I couldn't come up with it after a couple of quick searches. The actual commercial is a lot less important anyway, I can finally have the proper version of the song with the actual lyrics stuck in my head instead of my nonsense lyrics.

Thanks again to everyone that answered, and I hope that by leaving the correct answer here it will help a random stranger on the internet in the future who may be searching for the same thing!

posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:40 PM on November 30, 2020 [1 favorite]