Shenandoah and Come Di

I recognized the music in two commercials I watched over the past weekend.

A commercial for the U.S. Air Force features a woman's voice, intoning a hopeful tune. Gentle music complements her.

For a soap commercial (Zest?), I heard a male voice do an up-tempo 'scat', a verbal 'riff', accompanied by a jaunty piano.

I was amazed when I recognized the armed forces music. It was music by Daniel Lanois, and voice by Emmylou Harris, from the soundtrack to the movie Sling Blade. I love this haunting song. It's the shortest song on the album: a scant one minute, nineteen seconds. However, when I heard this song during the movie, I thought "it'd be wonderful to get the soundtrack". On just the strength of this song, I bought the CD.

I was even more amazed when I recognized the soap music. It's from Paolo Conte, an Italian singer. One of my favorite singer/songwriters is Tom Waits. He didn't do this soap commercial; Paolo Conte did. What's the connection? A while back, I was actively looking for music like Tom Waits. A chance album review I read said that Paolo Conte sounded like Tom Waits. Just like that, I bought a Paolo Conte album. And it was amazing. The songs were happy, sad, and wonderfully different. I grew to cherish this album.

I located another review saying that Mr. Conte is the Italian Tom Waits. The song for the soap commercial comes is "Come di".

Hearing these two tunes used in a commercial fashion was pleasantly surprising. And, yes, it made me feel a little smug knowing I had heard it before.