'At Last' cat food jingle is for the dogs

David Hinckley
New York Daily News

Etta James' "At Last" is a record that, as Joni Mitchell once put it, will make you say "I love you" right out loud.

Except when you hear it used in a radio ad for cat food. Then it makes you say, "Honey, where's my .30-06? I'm aiming to blow this radio into the middle of next week."

Unfortunately, the Fancy Feast commercial that uses "At Last" doesn't seem to be going away. Nor does it seem to be developing any redemptive traits, like a hint of bemusement.

In the years since Madison Avenue decided that renting songs for ads was a cheap way to buy a piece of everything the song ever meant to anyone who heard it, we've gotten Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin' " pitching an accounting firm and John Lennon's "Revolution" selling overpriced sneakers.

Somehow, impossible as it seems, this one feels worse.

Hearing "At Last" to pitch cat food is like hearing "Peace in the Valley" to sell time-shares for the Poconos. When "At Last" was selling Jaguars back in 1996, the ads at least gave a nod to class. This one feels like wearing a ball gown to a tractor pull.

It insults the song. It insults the listener. It insults Etta James. It probably insults cats.

The good news is that James, unlike too many of her peers, is doing fine. She's still recording and performing, and, cat food aside, she gets respect. She gets so many bookings she recently had to turn down an invitation to sing at Sandra Bullock's birthday party.

Not bad for a woman whose first hit came 50 years ago this past April: "Roll With Me Henry," an answer to the Midnighters' "Work With Me Annie."

Because listeners understood that "Roll" means the same thing as "Work," her record was retitled "The Wallflower." That is bemusement.

Five years later, Leonard Chess of Chess Records redirected James toward standards, and one of her first was "At Last," a 1942 Mack Gordon-Harry Warren tune written for Glenn Miller. Once James recorded it in October 1960, no one remembered the Miller version, or any other.

She said it was no big trick, because these standards were imprinted in her DNA.

"These were songs my mother loved," she said. "Songs I associated with Billie Holiday, songs that took me back to my childhood when I'd watch my mother dress up in beautiful gowns and go out on the town with hip jazz musicians or high-rolling gamblers. They were exciting, romantic, sophisticated songs."

And exactly who would take that to mean "cat food jingles"?

Now there's nothing wrong with cat food, and "At Last" will survive this ad. But whoever thought it up should be required to eat Fancy Feast for as long as it runs.