Walmart Commercial

While watching the Olympics I noticed a lot of the same commercials during the breaks.  I don’t know how it is for other programming, but I do know that when watching sports you tend to see the same set of commercials played over and over again.  One particular commercial caught my eye.  It was a commercial for Walmart.

Walmart released a new commercial series, narrated by Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame, in which they pledge to purchase $250 billion in American made goods over the next decade.  The narration is played over scenes showing factory workers hard at work making things.  The narration and vignettes seem to be selected to inspire pride in good ol’ American, blue collar elbow grease.  The whole thing seems very pro-American, except for one glaring mistake which rubs me the wrong way

The soundtrack behind this intended inspiring patriotic message supporting American made products and American blue collar labor is “Working Man” by Canadian band Rush.

For a company that was trying so hard to go America all over everyone’s asses, you’d think they could have used a song by an American artist.  At some point in American history some American must have written a pro-American, blue collar song that would have worked for this commercial.  I’m fairly certain that any song in the oeuvre of country and western music would fulfill this criterion. 

It’s this mistake, which some might consider a small detail, which makes me think that Walmart’s “Go America!” message to Americans watching the Olympics is disingenuous.  I guess we’ll find out in a decade.