Specific Technology References In Lyrics....Sometimes It Works....... Or Not

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Considered taboo by many is referencing specific technology in song lyrics. When does it work and when does it not?

Her's a few ideas:

Queen- "Machines (Back To Humans)"

It's bytes and megachips for tea
It's that machine boys
With random access memory

It's software is hardware
It's heartbeat is time-share
It's midwife's a disc drive


Tori Amos- "Amber Waves"

Into every young man's
Bedroom - you gave it up
on DVD..


Eminem "Stan"

"So this is my cassette I'm sending you, I hope you hear it"


Veruca Salt "With David Bowie"

"My walkman and me, with David Bowie"


This post was inspired by a band I saw the other night at a club that used the word "Google" in it's lyrics.


ZionTrain, Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

Fiery Furnaces - "Wolfnotes"

Turn off your radio
shut away your stereo
put away your discman
and play me a tune today


That one works.

sleep (sleep), Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

This 'rapper' (in the loosest sense of the word)-MC Lars- namechecks iTunes in his song, iGeneration, which is on an EP called Laptop. I guess that's used up all his technology references...

iGeneration

And people tried to put us down, when iTunes bumped a post-Cold War sound.
My generation sat the mecca of malls, Times Square, I'm there, Viacom installs.
So we hit the net while the Trade Center fell, New York met Hollywood, we ran like hell.
No Vietnam for us, yo, Iraq it's on. So who agree upon this cowboy Genghis Khan?
The choice made, baby. Hey we'd take it back, logged in dropped out, MTV took track.
They sold it back to us and claimed no correlation. The iMac, iPod, iGeneration.
And I'm waiting for the day we can get out. The world is ours, that's the story no doubt.
Want to be more info super highway traffic, want to be more than a walking demographic!

CHORUS
"Hey! You're part of it." Talking about the iGeneration.
"Yeah! You're part of it." Talking about my iGeneration.

See the iGeneration knew organization meant optimization and unification,
When imagination gave participation in creation of culture a manifestation.
The Berlin Wall fell and out we came, the post-Cold War kids laid claim to AIM.
LOL, OMG, yo, BRB. Space, colon, dash, closed parenthesis.
We sat at our laptops and typed away, and found that we each had something to say.
Web-logged our fears, our hopes and dreams. Individuated by digital means.
Fiber optic lenses, DVD, Coca Cola, Disney and Mickey D's.
Flat mass culture, the norm that took holdÉ I hope I die before I get sold.

jellybean (jellybean), Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

"Bigmouth Strikes Again" works.

"Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her Roman nose
and her Walkman started to melt."

Often misheard by me as "and her warm flesh started to melt," sung by Morrissey on latest live album as "and her iPod started to melt."

Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

oh and how can we miss out pretty much the entire Kraftwerk back catalogue?

jellybean (jellybean), Sunday, 24 April 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)

I think it works for "Mica"

'Then there'd be no whistles, no radios
No screens
Then there'd be no whistles, no radios
No screens '

It's more like "No screeeeeeeeeeeeeeens!!!"

Aja (aja), Sunday, 24 April 2005 15:00 (twenty years ago)

Rufus Wainwright's Vibrate, off of Want One, make reference to a vibrating cellphone, and there's an unfortunate specific genre reference, too!


My phone's on vibrate for you
Electroclash is karoake too
I try to dance Britney Spears
I guess I'm getting on in years

Jay Watts III (jaywatts), Sunday, 24 April 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

Who could forget the great 'not' that was Jethro Tull's "Dot Com," off their late masterpiece "J-Tull Dot Com":

It's a wide world out there
So much wider than imagined
I can't quite put my finger on the pulse
Of your heart softly beating
Just beneath the raw silk sheen
That reflects the tints of autumn from the hills.

So punch my name.
And in case you wonder -
I'll be yours - yours, dot com.

mrjosh (mrjosh), Sunday, 24 April 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

I've noticed not so much the lyrics, but a lot of concert recording albums tend to credit Ableton's LIVE in the title. It usually works, especially with James Brown's Live at the Apollo and Raven's Live at the Inferno.

The ReBirth Brass Band also thumps into mind here.

Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Monday, 25 April 2005 00:45 (twenty years ago)

War, "Summer": "8-track playin' all your favorite songs." (In case that doesn't date it enough, there's also a CB radio reference.)

Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 25 April 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

hahahahah j-tull.com. best is that there's a goat on the cover! (separate thread: internet references in songs/albums, like trick daddy's www.thug.com)

for this, though: "FOR ALL THE BROTHERS WITH AN 808, PE GOT A BRAND NEW FUNK!"

jake b. (cerybut), Monday, 25 April 2005 02:45 (twenty years ago)

> (separate thread: internet references in songs/albums, like trick daddy's www.thug.com)


Alan Jackson, "www.memory"

Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 25 April 2005 02:49 (twenty years ago)

j-tull.com: whooooaaaa!!

http://www.markglinsky.com/tull2.jpghttp://www.markglinsky.com/tull2.jpghttp://www.markglinsky.com/tull2.jpg

sleep (sleep), Monday, 25 April 2005 03:08 (twenty years ago)

Jay-Z's rhyme from "Beware of the Boys" works for me

All day I'm P-I-M-P
I am simply attached to tha track like SMPTE

milton parker (Jon L), Monday, 25 April 2005 03:30 (twenty years ago)

Misunderstood, by Wilco:

"it's only a quarter to three/reflectin off of your CD"

in live shows, though, they change it to 'MP3'.

dstopping, Monday, 25 April 2005 03:37 (twenty years ago)

i'm a sucker for On The Internet by Essential Logic

LRJP! (LRJP!), Monday, 25 April 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

Blood Sweat & Tears - "Spinning Wheel"

Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:37 (twenty years ago)

Search: "Bass in your face, not an eight track"

Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:42 (twenty years ago)

Princess Superstar "You Get Mad At Napster"

nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:43 (twenty years ago)

I've noticed not so much the lyrics, but a lot of concert recording albums tend to credit Ableton's LIVE in the title. It usually works, especially with James Brown's Live at the Apollo and Raven's Live at the Inferno.

The ReBirth Brass Band also thumps into mind here.

You win the internet today.

Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:57 (twenty years ago)

"I see you've sent my letters back
And my LP records and they're all scratched"

Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 25 April 2005 17:59 (twenty years ago)

"Don't know what a slide rule is for"

Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 25 April 2005 18:01 (twenty years ago)

"I'm the operator of my pocket calculator."

Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 25 April 2005 18:02 (twenty years ago)

"She's my TV Mama, one with the big, wide screen"

earlnash, Monday, 25 April 2005 18:42 (twenty years ago)

"A silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload."

Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 25 April 2005 18:43 (twenty years ago)

The Fall - "Dr. Buck's Letter"
Checklist:
I never leave home without:
1. Sunglasses - I wear them all year around, and seem to need them more often, it’s a habit
2. Music - cassettes, CDs
3. Palm Pilot - it’s my lifeline. I think it’s my P.A.’s computer, she rules my diary and I download it
4. Mobile phone
5. Amex card - they made such a fuss about giving it to me but I spend more time getting it turned down
I was in the realm of the essence of Tong.

The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Monday, 25 April 2005 18:48 (twenty years ago)

fucking Incubus.

AaronK (AaronK), Monday, 25 April 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

silicon teens use drum machines and tambourines
silicon teens are from england...

silicon teens use synthesizers and drum machines
silicon teens are from england

--the pulsars, "silicon teens"

fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 25 April 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

If you wanna make me flip
Hit me with a micro chip

I'll be a diode, cathode, electrode
Overload, generator, oscillator
Make a circuit with me

--the polecats, "make a circuit with you"


Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 25 April 2005 19:24 (twenty years ago)

he's got 50,000 watts
in a big acoustic tower

nick lowe, "so it goes"

fact checking cuz (fcc), Monday, 25 April 2005 19:25 (twenty years ago)

This may make some ILM'ers cringe:

Net boy, net girl
Send your impulse 'round the world
Put your message in a modem
And throw it in the Cyber Sea

Rush "Virtuality"

ZionTrain, Monday, 25 April 2005 20:23 (twenty years ago)

My dad was in a cheesy 80s new wave band that had a song called "terminal case" with a bassline like "white wedding" and a line that was something like:

Disk Drive ROM RAM CPU!!

Fetchboy (Felcher), Monday, 25 April 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

This makes me wonder if Commodore 64's, Vic-20's or EPYX games ever made it on to record. I'm sure ATARI is around somewhere.

ZionTrain, Monday, 25 April 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

"I'm watching the world through Microsoft Windows" - a song I can't remember the title of on Lewis Parker's It's All Happening Now. Didn't work.

Also, Email My Heart by Britney.

syntaxfree (syntaxfree), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 03:25 (twenty years ago)

"Microsoft motherfuckers let bygones be bygones
but since I'm Macintosh, I'ma double click your icons"
He struggled for life, then gave up the fight
Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada last night

babyalive (babyalive), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 04:35 (twenty years ago)

Prince's "My Computer" starts with the famous AOL message (as spelled by Prince) -"Welcome- U've got mail!"

Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 04:41 (twenty years ago)

Bowie's "Drive-In Saturday"

"When people stared in Jagger's eyes and scored
Like the video films we saw"

Dr Benway (dr benway), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 08:48 (twenty years ago)

i always thought that wilco line was "reflecting off the LCD"

Fetchboy (Felcher), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

Our Love is Here to Stay (1937):

The radio and the telephone and the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies and in time may go

PappaWheelie, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:47 (twenty years ago)

"We got to install Microwave Ovens. Custom kitchen deliveries. We got to move these refigerators. We got to move these color TV's"

Dire Straits

ZionTrain, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

Ah.. found a COMMODORE reference

"When the strip was introduce to Paruiqo
Commodore 64 and Coleco"

Joe Budden: "#1"

ZionTrain, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)


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