After the black-and-white clip of Beck covering Neil Young’s “Old Man” to promote next Sunday’s (October 2) Sunday Night Football matchup aired on NBC last Sunday night (September 25), the broadcast cut to SNF color commentator Cris Collinsworth and play-by-play man Mike Tirico. Collinsworth noted how cool it was. It appears as if Young disagrees.
Young has taken to Instagram to post a throwback photo of his younger self holding up a beer bottle with “Sponsored By Nobody” written on it. It’s a callback to the end of his 1988 “This Note’s For You” video, which specifically called out Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston and more generally mocked commercialized artistry. “Ain’t singin’ for Pepsi / Ain’t singin’ for Coke,” he sang in the song. “I don’t sing for nobody / Makes me look like a joke.” The video was banned by MTV.
Beck’s “Old Man” was chosen to soundtrack Week 4’s SNF clash between Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, 27, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, 45. The 30-second spot hinged around the song’s intro and first verse, featuring lines such as, “Old man, look at my life / I’m a lot like you were,” and, “Twenty-four, and there’s so much more.” The latter is a direct reference to Brady and Mahomes each winning his first Super Bowl at 24 years old. (Brady has, of course, won seven en route to his future first-ballot induction into the Hall Of Fame, while Mahomes is still chasing No. 2.)
Beck released his full-length, standalone “Old Man” cover on Monday (September 26), but maybe Jimmy Fallon is the only one with Young’s permission to cover it on NBC.
Watch the SNF commercial above.