Don Draper wasn’t that excited to go out to Forest Hills, N.Y., to see the Rolling Stones. He was doing so as a favor to his client, Heinz Beans, to see if they’d do a little ditty for them called “Heinz is On My Side.”
Being this was “Mad Men,” it was all anchored in real events — a July 2, 1966 concert that had a typical 10-song setlist of its day, one you’d kill to hear today: “Not Fade Away,” “The Last Time,” “Stupid Girl,” “Time is On My Side,” “The Spider and the Fly,” “Lady Jane,” “Get Off of My Cloud,” “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “Paint it Black,” “Satisfaction.”
You didn’t hear any of these songs on the show’s soundtrack. Don and Harry were backstage awaiting the band, talking to some young fans. Don was trying to pick their mind while Harry was whisked off to do business. As they mentioned, the Stones had done an ad for British TV for Rice Krispies that was pretty cool:
But there was apparently no convincing them to do Heinz. Or there was never a chance. Harry came back and said that he had accidentally signed the Trade Winds, a Providence vocal group that was on the tour and had one big hit: “New York’s a Lonely Town (When You’re the Only Surfer Boy Around).” But could he really have mistaken them for Stones?
The band they should have gone after was the Who, the British group that even recorded a song called “Heinz Baked Beans” in the form of an ad for their pre-emptive “The Who Sell Out” album, with Roger Daltrey sitting amid such a big can of the stuff, if he ate it, he’d turn into Betty Draper, er, Francis.