Apple’s “The Song” Ad Shows The Kind Of Effort None Of Us Will Ever Put Into A Christmas Gift

In a sentimental commercial that will inspire thousands of people to immediately purchase a copy of GarageBand, play with it for 25 minutes, then promptly dismiss it when they haven’t produced Kid A, Apple’s “The Song” shows the power of Apple software to create a homemade gift that will make your grandmother cry.

The grandmother in question receives an updated version of a song she recorded for her husband some decades before. The granddaughter listens to the song, records her own music and vocals, and sets it up on an iPad for her grandmother to enjoy. Way to go, kid! Remind your poor widowed grandmother all about her dead husband and show off your dope musical skills in the process. Christmas: achieved.

Let this be a reminder to the rest of you, though: You do not have great musical ability and it will cost you hundreds of dollars to get the equipment you need to digitize sound on a vinyl record and create a clean-sounding recording on your own, not to mention the hours it would take to learn the song and write a harmony to it.

You simply are not going to put that much effort into Christmas. Might I suggest a gift card to Bath and Body Works.

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UPDATE: For the curious, here’s how you’d go about making your own remix from a song recorded on vinyl long ago: