Looking for artist and recording of music used in new TIAA-CREF
commercial running on Olympics. Song is "Somewhere" from "West Side
Story" (Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim).
(Lyrics: "there's a place for us... 
A time and place for us. 
Hold my hand and we're halfway there. 
Hold my hand and I'll take you there...")
Male vocalist, very minimal orchestration, maybe a couple of strings. 
Who is this?

I remember watching that commercial and wondering the singer as well. 
In a month (once Google's reindexed pages), I imagine the solution
will turn up on a blog or two as typically happens with this sort of
question.

I've not seen the ad, I'm afraid, but could it be Tom Waits (from Blue
Valentine album)? He's got quite a deep, gruff/gravelly(?) voice. 
Amazon have a song sample linked from
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002GWJ

Well just tune in to the Ollympics on NBC for a couple of hours and
you're bound to see the ad at least once. No, it's definitely not Tom
Waits--I'd know his voice anywhere, and I found  that same clip too
and listened to it JUST IN CASE. This singer is a little rougher than
John Mayer, maybe like a cross between Nick Drake and Kurt Cobain.
Thanks for helping!

Found it!

I was dying to know, too.   Typed "Olympics" "commercials" "Songs" into
Google and up came a website, whatsitcalled.com . . . and voila!

Here's what was posted by someone who contacted TIAA-CREF:

"Ok as promised here is their reply (thanks TIAA-CREF) David Sylvian,
a British singer (from a band called Japan), performs the song in our
60 second TV ad during the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. We
also have a 30 second ad which is performed by another British singer
Ian McCullough.  For those who don't know who Ian McCullough is, I met
him once and he used to be the lead singer in Echo & The Bunnymen but
that's a seperate story .  Whether these songs are available on CD is
up to you guys...let me know please ."

Thanks a billion cryptica-ga. For you and anyone else who peaks in,
here's the link to the MP3:
http://www.davidsylvian.net/mod/downloads/dwnld/somewhere.mp3
Enjoy!

Robnyc--
I made a mistake on the name of that website.  It's what's THAT
called, not what's IT called.    http://www.whatsthatcalled.com
What a cool resource to find.  It's a constantly updated database of
songs/artists used in commercials in the UK and US.  We should all
bookmark that one!

hi -
i also check this website for what songs are on ads.....
http://adtunes.com/
they're pretty good and usually pretty up-to-date though this one wasn't on there.
i had thought it might be elvis costello singing "somewhere".
thanks to whomever found it!
maura

Does anyone know where I can find more music by Ian McCullough? Is his
other music similar in style to this comerical? Thanks.

jakn-ga:
The singer referred to in the link is Ian McCulloch, (not McCullough).
He has solo albums out, but was most famous in Echo and the Bunnymen,
top hit song "Lips Like Sugar".  I've figured out that McCulloch is
the singer in the short version of the TIAA-CREF commercial, and he
actually doesn't sing even a full verse, just sort of bridges into the
end and disappears under the voice-over.
The 60-second commercial is sung by David Sylvian (see link above).
His voice is deeper, more gravelly than McCulloch.
And no, McCulloch's music isn't much like the commercial, though
that's probably more due to the song than McCulloch's singing. 
Leonard Bernstein composes better music than your average Brit
post-punk pop star.

No, that link to the mp3 definetly wasn't the one in the commercial.
His voice is much lighter, and he pronounces halfway like "hofway".

Even though it's been confirmed David Sylvian is the voice of the
person singing, the singer also sounds very much like Vic Chesnutt,
the Georgia native and influential lyricist and vocalist to many
musical genres throughout the southern and western United States. My
ears certainly perked when I heard that song, and even though it's not
him, it sounded just like Vic. His web site is
http://www.vicchesnutt.com/

If you've never heard his stuff before, take a listen and open up your
ears and mind to his music - he is an incredible talent.

Regards,
-BJr

Could there possibly be 2 versions of that commercial? 'Cause I agree
with "1stname," David Sylvian does not sound like what I
heard...Wasn't there also a guitar accompaniment? I could be wrong.

To spoon247 and 1stname: yes, as noted earlier in this discussion,
there ARE two versions of this commercial. The one heard most often is
NOT David Sylvian. David Sylvian is the singer in a 60-second long
version of the commercial. The short 30-second version, heard most
often, is Ian McCulloch. The mp3 link IS NOT the more popular Ian
McCulloch version. It is to the longer, rarely aired, 60 second
version featuring the voice of David Sylvian.

Now, to make things even more complicated, my daughter just left me a
phone message this weekend telling me she heard a NEW version
featuring a small ensemble (quartet?) of voices, male and female.
Can't wait to figure out who sings in THAT one!

Thanks,

Thank you for the clarifications robynyc. Now if I could just download
that Ian version....

Yes. I just heard the new version this morning so got confused when
someone suggested it might be Tom Waits?! Now I want to hear the first
version, too.  The new one is BEAUTIFUL.  Has been haunting me all
day.

I wrote to TIAA CREF and got this response:

 
We're actually running serveral version at the moment, depending on
which one you saw here are the people who are singing
 
the one that features a Lecturer, custodian, Curator is Vic Chesnutt
the one with the piano tuner is Chan Marshall
the one with the doctor/nurse in scrubs is Ian McColloch
 
Hope that helps.
 
Glen
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Joyce Rosenthal [mailto:joyce_rosenthal@starkey.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 5:46 PM
To: gweiner@tiaa-cref.org
Subject: info about "somewhere" in latest ad


Hi Glen,

I was wondering if you might be able to find out who is singing the
song "somewhere" in the latest version of the TIAA-CREF commercial. 
I've been dying to hear it again.  It was really beautiful.

Thanks.

Sincerely,

Joyce Rosenthal

Yeah anyways... back to the somewhere question...Does anyone know
where I can get an MP3 of Somewhere on that TIAA-Cref comercial? I
wont rest until I can find it.

This is a link to an mp3 of ONE of the versions of this: the 60 second
commercial sung by David Sylvian. His voice is a bit huskier than the
more often heard Ian McCulloch version.
http://www.davidsylvian.net/mod/downloads/dwnld/somewhere.mp3

You can watch the commercial on your computer here:
http://tiaa-cref.org/flash/greatergood/main.html
(Flash version--if you have the right software you can capture the
audio on your computer as it plays).

I hear that the agency who created the commercials is Modernista!
(www.modernista.com). They have previous work posted on their site,
but not the TIAA-CREF ads, yet.

The one that i have seen/heard is Ian Mculloch, lead singer from Echo
and the Bunnymen.  Check out the album "what are you going to do with
your life"  Its a mellow album that resembles the type of music in the
Tiaa cref commercial.

When I saw the scene with the lecturer on TV, I noticed that at least
three of the people in one small part of the audience appeared to be
taking notes with their left hands.  This makes me think the scene was
originally filmed with the lecturer on the left and then optically
flipped horizontally to get better composition.  I don't think they
actually had that many lefties in the crowd.

hehe i just found the music for this commercial today... if you look
at the tiaa-cref flash program thingy, they have all their commercials
up there. i used audio hijack to rip the 30 second ian mcculloch
version and now its on my iPod.

What is audio hijack?

It's Dave Grusin. The song can be found on "Dave Grusin Presents West Side Story"

Actually, Grusin's version is sung by John Secada and is not one of
the 3 that herschela listed above. Not one of the tiaa cref
commercials unless they did a 4th I haven't seen. Vic Chesnut's
version is sung by Liz Durett and can be legally downloaded on her
website. I believe the version being sought in the original question
is the one by Ian McCulloch. As an Echo & the Bunnymen fan, I have
searched feverishly for it and currently believe it was commissioned
for the commercial and may not exist as a full version. McCulloch
split from the Bunnymen over 15 years ago. For other examples of his
work, he has 2 or 3 solo releases - one just a few years ago called
"Slideling."  His songs are more upbeat like E&tB, but he has a slower
more dramatical song "Candleland" which was his 1989 title release.
E&tB had a similar song called "All My Life" in 1987.