Posted by The holiday season is the perfect moment for a good, emotional commercial. For Christmas 2023, we will surely remember the ad released by Chevrolet, a long, touching story about a grandma suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and the effect her Chevy Suburban has on her. A family story like the one we often live in person, but also the hopeful tale of an awakening. And the song the protagonists sing in the crucial moment of the commercial is beautiful.
The concept behind the Chevy commercial is simple: it’s Christmas, the whole family gathers at the grandparents’ home, and they are all worried about grandma’s condition. Her Alzheimer’s disease
is worsening, and that morning, she’s just looking at the void, apparently not recognizing anyone. At this point, her granddaughter has an idea: we’ll drive around with her old Chevrolet, trying to bring back memories in her.
You can watch the 5-minute-long version of the Chevy Holiday 2023 commercial below and listen to the beautiful song while the ad’s protagonists sing it.
The song featured in the Chevy 2023 Christmas commercial is Sunshine On My Shoulders by John Denver. The American singer wrote it in 1971, as a celebration of spring and life. He explained in an interview how the song was born:
“I wrote the song in Minnesota at the time I call ‘late winter, early spring’. It was a dreary day, gray and slushy. The snow was melting and it was too cold to go outside and have fun, but God, you’re ready for spring. You want to get outdoors again and you’re waiting for that sun to shine, and you remember how sometimes just the sun itself can make you feel good. And in that very melancholy frame of mind I wrote Sunshine on My Shoulders.”
John Denver
The song describes how the sun brings a new light in the season that makes everything alive again. The grandmother and her granddaughter sing the first, most famous lines of the song:
Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high
You can listen to the song in full streaming below:
Sunshine On My Shoulders becomes the turning point of the new Chevy Christmas 2023 commercial: the song marks the moment when the grandmother is fully present again, and while she sings it, she realizes she needs to be next to her husband in that moment. It’s an authentic awakening, and when the grandmother is back, we watch the emotional instant with her husband. His face shows how rare it has been lately to be fully recognized, and at that moment, he feels happy and satisfied: this Christmas is unique, thanks to the granddaughter’s idea and the memories brought back by the old Chevy in the garage.
You don’t need to hold back tears: it’s the right moment of the year to cry in front of a touching story.
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