Everybody's Happy Nowadays

Recently I've been seeing an AARP ad which uses the chorus "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" from the Buzzcocks' song. I wonder if anyone involved in making this ad paid any attention to the lyric content of the rest of the song; if I remember correctly, the chorus was meant to be ironic, right? Admittedly, I haven't listened to my Buzzcock's recordings since the early '90's, but I thought the verses of the song had a rather dystopic, or at least disillusioned content, and that the 'happiness' everyone seems to be experiencing stems from a disengagement from reality. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; or if you have the inclination to search for the lyrics, please post them and let me know that I've totally missed the point.)

I like to think that the AARP is perhaps trying some subliminal advertising*; that the future holds little for us as we age that is positive, and that banding together in a radical body is the only chance we have of happiness that isn't an illusion - that otherwise, we really do have No Future**, just decades of personal and societal disappointment.

*This bit of fantasy on my part shows a complete disengagement from the nature of advertising, and reality in general; warning to the reader, an ex-boyfriend once told me I had a "rich inner life" and he did not mean it as a compliment. On the other hand, I like harboring images of the AARP turning into something like Hamas for older, non-wealthy Americans.

**Please reference the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen."

And while I'm on the topic of the Buzzcocks, didn't they have a line in a song that was "same as it never was?" Heh, Jennifer 'Sexpot' Hewitt seems to have kiped that for the name of her store on "Ghost Whisperer."

{God, I've been watching too much TV - this has to stop, I tell you!}