Little Boxes, on the iTunes… (or the song from the new O2 advert)

Since we first shared our brand new TV advert with our followers on social media, we’ve had a lot of interest in our version of the song that’s in it. Of the 2 million people who’ve watched it on YouTube, many have been asking who our version’s performed by and where they can get a copy of it…

The version in our advert was performed by Sniffy Dog featuring Adrienne Stiefel, and here’s the good news – it’s now available on iTunes, so you can get a copy to listen to whenever the mood takes you!

Originally penned and performed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962, the song was covered just the following year when it became a hit for Pete Seeger. Since then, it’s been covered countless times, with 141 covers on iTunes alone!

Malvina Reynolds’ nickname was the ‘Poetess of Protest’ and she wrote the song as a political satire, referring to suburban development and the conformist attitudes that went with it, the new houses being the ‘little boxes, all the same’ and the general changes to the way of life at the time. With that in mind, we’ve had a few comments on YouTube asking why we chose that particular song.

We felt that the lyrics did a wonderful job of setting up the idea of the sameness of life until you stop to think or do things differently. We rewrote the lyrics for the last part of the song, to refer to the positivity and possibilities that we can create through changing things.

To get your copy of Little Boxes by Sniffy Dog featuring Adrienne Stiefel, just head over to iTunes. It costs 99p, O2 don’t receive any of this money – it goes to the artist, publisher, label, Apple and towards covering royalties. It also uses the original lyrics instead of the ones in our ad, but sounds… just the same.