What's The Song In Christopher Walken's BMW Super Bowl Commercial?
For Super Bowl LVIII, luxury car brand BMW cast "Pulp Fiction" and "The Deer Hunter" actor Christopher Walken in a commercial advertising an electric sedan. As Walken goes about his day — making ample use of his electric BMW, of course — various service workers speak to the film icon in loose approximations of his iconic voice. Near its end, the spot even goes sort of meta for a second when, eating at the same restaurant, Walken reminds Usher that he has somewhere else to be, apparently referring to his Super Bowl halftime show gig.
Underscoring this strange day in Walken's life is the song "Express Yourself" by Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. Plenty of people watching this commercial may recognize the song's lead guitar and horn lines, or even the chorus that plays at the commercial's end, with no knowledge of the name of the artist who wrote and recorded it. That's because the song has a considerable presence in popular culture that arguably eclipses Wright's remaining body of work.
In fact, it's the single "Express Yourself" by pioneering rap group N.W.A., which samples Wright's hit extensively, that may well be responsible for getting the tune in front of more ears than any other single work, including the song's original recording.
Express Yourself has a sizable pop cultural footprint
Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band came up with "Express Yourself" in the midst of a live performance of another song titled "Do Your Thing." What was originally an extended live riff, during which Wright earnestly urged the members of his audience to express themselves, ended up becoming the band's biggest hit on the Billboard charts following its release in 1970.
Other artists began sampling the song as soon as the following year, when iconic dub reggae producer Lee "Scratch" Perry incorporated horns from its bridge into a song for singer Dave Barker. Meanwhile, legendary rap producer The Alchemist incorporated vocals from "Express Yourself" into the beat of "Just Step" for his collaboration with the rapper Evidence, called Step Brothers, as recently as 2014.
Meanwhile, "Express Yourself" is in a number of popular movies, too. For instance, Wright's original version of the song is on the soundtrack of Disney's "Remember the Titans," which is one of the biggest sports movies of all time. It's also in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," a trailer for the "Emoji Movie," and some other film or film-related projects. So even if Wright's name doesn't ring a bell, there are still plenty of contexts from which the song in BMW's Super Bowl commercial might still sound familiar.