Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Museum of Pop
Posted by illuminatus on 11 February 2011 - 9:12am.
I just happened to be listening to Chris Evans' Breakfast Show on Radio 2 as I was getting ready this morning, and heard yer man play Stevie Wonder's rather spiffy Sir Duke. But one line struck me this morning:
"Just because a record has a groove, don't mean it's in the groove."
Imagine an eight-year old in the car asking what that means, as you make your way through the early morning commute. How do you explain vinyl? So I got thinking about what other songs contain anachronisms and historical details that you'd need to explain to an eight-year old. Any suggestions?
- More from illuminatus.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Put the needle on the record
Was used to death in the early sampling era on records like Eric B And Rakim's Paid In Full.
Kylie's little sis still singing about putting the needle on it
well
OMD wrote a whole song about Telegraphs , although it could've been a) that they'd fallen out with the Guardian b) that Kraftwerk had nabbed all the cool electronics to sing about their next proposed singles being "Photostatland" and "CEEFAX (why do you bamboozle me).
Telegram
Sam
The 20th Century Boy
hasn't dated at all well, has he?
Hangin' On The Telephone
"I'm in the phone booth, it's the one across the hall
If you don't answer, I'll just ring it off the wall"
*Cue confused stares from small child who is wondering why someone's smartphone is a) in a booth and b) on the wall*
My daughter
once asked me, on a car journey, who was meaner out of Polk Salad Annie and Moonshine Minnie. I'm still unable to answer effectively.
Neither.
That was Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.
At a slight tangent to the OP....
but the same song provoked the following questions this morning...
"Mummy, why is custard dripping from a dead dog's eye?" "What's a semolina pilchard?" and "Why did she let her knickers down?".
Five points to the first person who can tell me what we were listening to (too easy, I know).
And actually I realise, that most of the music we listen to comes courtesy of my ipod (which is plumbed into the stereo). Yet I still refer to switching it on as "putting a tape on".
I Am The Walrus
Shoo boo dee do...
*awards five points*
*docks five*
for getting the second line wrong.
Goo goo g'joob, actually.
On last night's "Outnumbered"
Dad was asked if everything is made of atoms. On confirmation of this, the little girl asked: "Are shadows made of atoms?" What a genius question!
Taping
Yes, and recording something onto the Hard Disc Recorder is always "taping" - don't know what the equivalent would by.."HDR-ing"? Doesn't sound right.
"sky plussing" it seems
to be the modern idiom or maybe "Bt visioned it" in our house
It's easy
I just say "recording" it covers all angles.
Still taping in our house on the Sky box
Even the kids (5 and 9) say it.
"Dad, have you taped The Suite Life on Deck?"
I assume they have no idea of the history behind it!
Poor Sky box
Those two in the Suite Life always lead me to reconsider my whole moral compass. I know killing children is wrong, but that knowledge always wavers when I encounter Zach and Cody and their 'friends'.
It's horrific
Saccahrine Disney'd toot. Kids love it though. Would happily really hurt the twins, London and their mum. Y'know a really nice hard chinese burn or pull them up by their sideburns.
I do like Mr Moseby and the pre HSM Ashley Tisdale was clearly "star in the making".
Bring back Sabrina and the talking cat!
Del Amitri's Nothing Ever Happens
Typewriters (with covers), needles on records, and countless other outdated bit of office machinery. I'm sure a telex machine is mentioned.
yeah,
like Del Amitri ever happened. u must b joking. LOL!
Dave Amitri
will be non-plussed at missing this thread!
Plenty of choices from the HJH...
We're back in..er..Russia.
Lovely Rita, Parking Enforcement Officer
Day Return Off Peaker
Kindle Writer
Oyster to Ride
but you can't use your Oyster
on the Isle of Wight Ferry....
Or there's
Strictly No Twisting and Shouting
Intellectually disadvantaged person on The Hill
1/240th of a Pound Lane
She Can't Afford To Leave Home
And pretty soon, poor old Polythene Pam will be phased out!
or Strawberry
small estate of luxury bespoke executive family homes with twin garages paved off road parking and individual contemporary styling forever
Did the minidisc
ever make it in to the lyrics of a song before swiftly being consigned to the dustbin of history?
Dr Hook and the Medicine Show....
And the operator says forty cents more, for the next three minutes...
'So, like, has his mobile credit run out our something? And he's got a speaking reminder?'
Not sure this one stands the test....
Rah Band 'Clouds Across the Moon'
I'm sure there are better technological ways in 2011 to talk to your loved one on the Moon than begging the operator to try to connect you over and over.
Cameras and Phones
One of the mainstays of Shawn Colvin's live set is her song Polaroids while Mary Chapin Carpenter used to sing on You Win Again:
I’m standing here freezing at a phone booth baby
In the middle of God knows where
I got one quarter left your machine picks up
But baby I know you’re there
Which remnds me that I don't miss having to use phone boxes whatsoever.
see also
although with all the Faux-laroid and hipstermatic pictures you see endlessly these days may be the style of these older/defunct film formats will linger for a while.
In contrast
to the rest of this thread...
When I listen to Chuck Berry on "No Money Down" (1955) demanding power steering, power brakes, air conditioning, an in-car phone and a five year guarantee for no money down I find myself thinking I wouldn't have got that deal until a couple of years ago...
ah but is your
"coolerator ... crammed with TV dinners and ginger ale" though?
Dire
Any song that mentions colour televisions (Like "Money For Nothing") seems a bit odd these days.
There are other oddities where dates are mentioned such as "It's a piece of science fiction, set in 1983". Which was in the future when it was released.