Pop and Inflation

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Can rates of inflation be at all inferred from song lyrics? I have to assume that there was a period from the 60s to the early 80s when pay phones cost a dime instead of a quarter, as both the Turtles' "Happy Together" ("If I could call you up/Invest a dime/And you'd say you belonged to me/I'd lose my mind") and Harlequin's "Innocence" ("One dime is all it cost me and/I found out for sure, you know/That you'd double-crossed me/Just how much can I endure?") refer to this. When did they rise in price? It must have been pretty sudden b/c they've been a quarter as long as I can remember, which goes back to at the latest five years after the Harlequin song came out.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

phone calls are 35 cents now, get with it.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:13 (twenty-one years ago)

check references to juke boxes, as well.

― frankE (frankE), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Travis Tritt's "Here's A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)" to thread

― Al (sitcom), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Phone calls are 35 American cents in the US? That's like $3 Canadian!

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Phone calls are 50 cents in some places!

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

"Here's my number and a dime, call me anytime" -- "Call Me," Skyy (1980)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 8 October 2004 19:30 (twenty-one years ago)

You and that darn Harlequin song, Sundar - I swear I'm gonna buy that "Over 60 Minutes With Harlequin" CD next time I'm in the mall!
(Fondly recall not only "Innocence" but "Thinking Of You" and a few more. Musical tastes regressing even further into the past - pathetic.)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 8 October 2004 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

John Darnell a/k/a the Mountain Goats accounts for inflation when he performs "Alpha Desperation March." When he wrote it (early '90s?) the amount owed was $8k. WHen I last heard him perform it in 2004, it was $30k. I'd say that's about right; and knowing Darnell, he's done the math.

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 8 October 2004 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

haha and how about all those songs about writing letters, like with pens.

― Kim (Kim), Saturday, 9 October 2004 10:00 (twenty-one years ago)

i think you're right though - i don't remember some intermediary point where they charged 15 or 20 cents. guess they did it once they figured we no longer needed our pocketfuls of quarters for Pac Man.

― Kim (Kim), Saturday, 9 October 2004 10:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Trailers for sale or rent,
Rooms to let, fifty cents,
No phone, no pool, no pets,
I ain't got no cigarettes,
Two hours of pushin' broom,
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room,
I'm a man of means by no means,
King of the road.

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Saturday, 9 October 2004 14:01 (twenty-one years ago)

also, by the time joan jett sang "put another dime in the jukebox, baby" i'm pretty sure any remaining juxeboxes cost more than a dime.
i guess she was going for a retro thing, or "quarter" just didn't sound right....

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Saturday, 9 October 2004 14:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Did jukeboxes even cost a quarter in the 80s? Usually I find that they ask for $3 and let you play three songs.

I found another: the BB King song where he sings "I bought you a ten-dollar meal/You said 'Thanks for the snack!'" That must have seemed much more outrageous one time! It's not quite on par with "I bought you a car/But you wanted a Cadillac" anymore.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 16 October 2004 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven years pass...

1967: "I'm waiting for my man / Got $26 in my hand"

Equivalent of $185 today

― john. a resident of chicago., Friday, 27 November 2015 19:46 (ten years ago)

I was at a Legion Hall this month where the jukebox was 25 cents a play.

― everything, Friday, 27 November 2015 20:21 (ten years ago)

where?

― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Friday, 27 November 2015 20:23 (ten years ago)

this would be a fun data journalism project

― flopson, Friday, 27 November 2015 20:24 (ten years ago)

Billy Bishop Legion in Kitsilano Jim.

― everything, Friday, 27 November 2015 20:27 (ten years ago)

Recommend it if you haven't been. Most UK boozer in town tbh.

― everything, Friday, 27 November 2015 20:27 (ten years ago)

thanks, that's fairly handy for me.

― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Friday, 27 November 2015 20:33 (ten years ago)

Yeah, I played the piano there on Remembrance Day. Wotta riot.

But not to derail the thread, just want to point out that in the song "Half a Sixpence" by Tommy Steele, his assertion that "half a farthing's better than none is debatable, since that would equal 1/48th of one pence so I doubt if that really is better than nothing.

― everything, Friday, 27 November 2015 20:45 (ten years ago)

ive done some background research and calculations and the musical half a sixpence is based on a 1905 hg wells novel and half a farthing in 1905 would be around 2p today.

― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Friday, 27 November 2015 21:22 (ten years ago)

(n.b. my calculations were probably wrong)

― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Friday, 27 November 2015 21:23 (ten years ago)

What follows is a boringly factual answer to the OP.

These are the rates for making a pay phone call in New York State over the years:

1906-1951 5 cents
1951-1984 10 cents
1984-2002 25 cents
2002-present 50 cents (New York was the very last state to raise its rate to 50 cents)

Some other states went to intermediate rates at various times. For example, New Jersey went to 20 cents in 1982. As of 1977 there were 15 states that charged 20 cents, five states that charged 15 cents, and 30 states that charged 10 cents.

Florida was the first state to go to 50 cents, albeit only about one-third of the state initially, which happened back in 1977.

― Josefa, Friday, 27 November 2015 23:04 (ten years ago)

1973: Alice Coopoer's "Billion Dollar Babies"

Equivalent of "$5,360,000,000 Babies" today

― john. a resident of chicago., Friday, 27 November 2015 23:40 (ten years ago)

I live in Florida and I haven't seen a pay phone in years. But a Google search does show they do exist still.

― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Saturday, 28 November 2015 00:39 (ten years ago)

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