Songs that mention the current year

The big one being "1989 the number / another summer" but also was just listening to "Bop Gun" with "1993, much more ba-e-ya-e-younce"

ton of y2k examples about to be presented

"Well, it's 1969, okay?" - The Stooges

"81 - 82 - 83 - 84" - Simple Minds

"It's nineteen hundred seventy-seven. Whole country's doin' a fix" - Suicide

"1990, Chubb Rock jumps up on the scene
With a lean and a pocket full of green" -- Chubb Rock, Treat Em Right

Wire, "It's So Obvious"

"This is 77, nearly heaven"

lol I use these a lot near the start of mixes for obvious reasons, will treat this as a suggestion box.

1969 by The Stooges is probably the most obvious one

"In 1977, I hope I go to heaven" - The Clash

Popular rhyme that year.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4nq95keDm1r533yoo1_400.gif

"Out of my mind on Saturday night, 1970 rollin' in sight" - The Stooges

"I been makin' records on wax since 1982. Now it's 1988 finally I'm coming through" - Ice-T

Al Stewart, "Russians and Americans":

"So here we stand at the edge of 1984, bracing ourselves once again"

(maybe he wrote it in 1983, but it was released in 1984)

Fresh for 88, you suckaz

My Philosphy, BDP

Every mix should include "Vigerton 2" by King Stitt.

"Divine in '69".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUayimCyjY0

X-Ray Spex joined Team 1977 too, with "Paper Bag", many times over:

1977 and we are going mad / 1977 and we've seen too many ads... etc.

X-Ray Spex joined Team 1977 too, with "Paper Bag", many times over:

1977 and we are going mad / 1977 and we've seen too many ads... etc.

"Plastic Bag" innit. What a mess. Sorry.

lol

Pharcyde - "Runnin'"

"t's 1995
And now that I'm older, stress weighs on my shoulders"

“This is how we chill from 93 til…” by Souls of Mischief

Eurythmics, "Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)" (duh)

Stankonia getting delayed by a year really helped a song containing the line, “But this'll be the year that we won't forget 1-9-9-9” considering “B.O.B.”’s constant high rankings on “Best Songs of the 2000s” lists.

spacemen 3's "it's 1987 - all i wanna do is get stoned"

Empty Country, "Swim": "I'm an Okie from the '30s, but it's 2020"

“As we move into ‘92, still in a room without a view” RATM - Know Your Enemy

Asia - Heat of the Moment

And now you find yourself in '82 / The disco hotspots hold no charms for you

"It's 1997, what the fuck's going on" - 2K, Fuck the Millennium

Pop Will Eat Itself's Harry Dean Stanton mentions both the previous and following years, but not 1992 itself

Oingo Boingo "Wake Up (It's 1984)” which is about the Orwell novel, but was released summer of 1983 as 1984 was looming so I think it counts.

Scooter "Back in the UK": "We started in 1994! In 1996, we're still on the case!"

it's 2025 and the case still hasn't been solved

"She says that I'm fat, I say that she's thin. It's 1987 and ugly is in" - Pop Will Eat Itself

It’s 1998 and REAGAN’S DEAD!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpzb1S_nOvw

"California Love"

've been in the game for ten years makin' rap tunes
Ever since honeys was wearin' Sassoon
Now it's '95 and they clock me and watch me
Diamonds shinin', lookin' like I robbed Liberace

"It's a brand new record for 1990. They Might Be Giants' brand new album Flood"

Does the current year only qualify if it's the year of release, not the year of recording? Cus in the latter camp there's

"Quote from The Observer dated the 18th of April 1993" - Disco Inferno, In Sharky Water
"He is DJ Run and I am D.M.C., funky fresh for 1983" - Run-D.M.C., Here We Go live a the Funhouse

"Soixant′neuf année érotique" - Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

Mott the Hoople, "Pearl and Roy (England)"

It's clean the chimneys kids, and it's 1974
Shake a fist, make Oliver Twist
there's no way you ain't poor

1977, and we are going mad!

X-ray Spex - "Plastic Bag" (1978)

Charley Patton - 34 Blues
I ain't gonna tell nobody, '34 have done for me

Big Daddy Kane - Ain't No Half Steppin'
'Cause '88 time to set it straight

“Bling bling” - “it’s 1999 and it’s our turn to shine”

“Wu revolution” - “this is 1997”

.380 - Elbows Swang
So now it's '95 / Another number, I like drama / So listen to my trunk just thump like thunder

EPMD - So Let the Funk Flow
In '88 / no wait, I think it's too late
and:
Let's get it straight for 1988

almost sure an NWA track starts out the gate with "Nineteen ninety mutherfuckin one" or something

More from Mott the Hoople, which I'm not surprised about in the least! This time, "Saturday Gigs".

In Seventy-four on the Broadway tour
We didn't much like dressing up no more
Don't wanna be hip - but thanks for a great trip.

Not the current year, but anticipatory in 1988:

She's so mean, but I don't care
I love her eyes and her wild wild hair
Dance to the beat that we love best
Heading for the nineties
Living in the wild wild west

Sort of:

Blondie, "Call Me" - Extended Version

Take me out and show me off and put me on the scene
Dress me in the fashions of the 1980s

Public Enemy - Fight the Power starts off with the year!

1989 the number another summer

Two Sevens Clash

Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin" doesn't do this, but it's kinda close:

"Don't you give me all that jive about things you wrote before I's alive
'Cause this ain't 1823 -- ain't even 1970"

Nina Hagen - "1985 Ekstasy Drive"

All the people I was kissing / Some are here and some are missing / In the 1990s

it's 1992 and still no one to vote for - Beastie Boys, Skills to Pay the Bills

and we get a bit of 1992 in They Reminisce Over You

Do Re Me So Far So Good, Carter USM:

1992, don't believe the hype/Take a look at the small print, ignore the bold type

The Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring" mentions the 1990s, but not a specific year.

Albeit that it was released in 1990, and the 1990s are implied to be the current era... but it was released in 1990, so perhaps Neil Tennant was hoping it would still be in the charts in 1991. Which it wasn't because it barely cracked the top 20 despite being fab.

Pulp's "Disco 2000" of course came out in 1995, and the band was dead set against re-releasing it in 2000.

Saxon's "Denim and Leather" mentions 1979, as a kind of year zero for the NWOBHM, but it was released in 1981. Already the NWOBHM was mythologising itself.

That should read "but it was released in November 1990".

XTC "Living through another Cuba"

"It's 1961 again, and we are piggy in the middle"

(The Cuba crisis was in 1962)

Two different Belle & Sebastian songs mention 1995. Both came out a little later than that but I assume they were written then.

Sublime Get Out

Cause all I see is your fussin' and fighting
1992 so lets all start uniting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEHJX05lTrU

"2009!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izQB2-Kmiic

^^ Zager And Evans - In The Year 2525

Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin" doesn't do this, but it's kinda close

but The Waitresses "Christmas Wrapping" does - "most of '81 passed along those lines", which is the only thing that dates this song. Well that and the mention of long-defunct A&P grocery store, which the Spice Girls cover changed to a Tesco

A Tribe Called Quest - The Chase, Part II
'93 means skills are a must, so never lack

OutKast - Elevators (Me & You)
'96 gon' be the year that all y'all player-haters can bite me

OutKast - Player's Ball
In '93, that's how we comin'

Mr. Tinimaine - 19 Tini 5

I'll bite and give a 2000 example bcus it was a UK number one: Spice Girls - Holler

Boom Boom Pow's '3008/two-thousand-and-late' survived being 'dated' in 2009 as a pun that could only fit the previous year but it's another where the recording/release split is made plain

The Being Boring effect also applies to a sample used on "Kickin' It" on Big Audio Dynamite II's Kool-Aid (1990): 'once we get out of the 80s, the 90s are gonna make the 60s look like the 50s'. Robbie Williams' 'Supreme' (2000) also has 'this new century keeps bringing you down'.

Bohannon, "South Africa '76"

"A message to the people
This is 1976
Please don't give me no more of your tricks"

Anthrax:
1991, always on the run
seven years ago we wrote this one

MX-80 Sound, "Summer '77"

(a bit of a cheat, maybe, seeing as the song was recorded in April of that year)

Tom Robinson Band: "Winter of '79”

"A pint of beer was still ten bob"

Released in Summer '77, when a pint was 39p. It was 50p by the end of '79 though.

Biz Markie - Vapors
Now for the year of '88

Tha Dogg Pound - Reality
Daily, it enhances the penitentiary chances to survive in 1995 / So I got 1995 ways to survive nowadays

Mobb Deep - Survival of the Fittest
Open your eyes and get wise / Look alive in '95

Goodie Mobb - Goodie Bag
See, I wonder will I walk the streets in 1995

Goodie Mob, rather

Versatile feat. MC B-Live - (ahem) Cum Cakes

"2001, suckas!"