Sarah McLachlan and that PSA for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals still lives rent free in my head all the years later. Apparently, I'm not the only one.
The singer recently revealed that people still send her multiple letters a week about dog rescues. The iconic 2000s commercial featured her 1997 ballad "Angel." Appearing on Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast, McLachlan says people still assume that she is "constantly fostering and adopting animals."
"Oh yeah, you would not believe the ... and also 10 or 20 letters a week about, you know, people sending me all their rescues or, 'I'm doing this charity. I'm working with this. Can you help?'" she said. The PSA ended up being successful but took on a life of its own. "It took on such a life of its own. I remember I was doing a food bank charity gig in New York eight years later and they said, 'Can you please not play "Angel," because it's so synonymous with this other charity? There's going to be some brand confusion."
Sarah McLachlan on PSA
At the time, she said, "I'm like, 'God, are you serious?' "
The conversation about the singer's famous "Angel" ad came up as she and Poehler discussed her hit track.
"I think people have an idea of who I was. Regardless of my playful, happy nature, what was portrayed was somber album covers and dark moody music," McLachlan said. "It surprises people when they meet me and I'm so happy and light. They assume I'm going to be like Sylvia Plath and reading poetry and drinking wine at midnight with candles and all dark and moody, I get it all out in my music."
She described the PSA as painful in someways.
"In some ways, [it] brought me to a whole new audience," the singer said. "That's just one element of me. It's created an opportunity for lots of memes and lots of poking fun, and yet it did a lot of good in the world. So, that makes me really happy."
