Lyrics whose historical references are or will someday soon be lost

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So I was listening to Kanye West and the following line from "The New Workout Plan" made me think:

Ooh girl your breath is HARSH
Cover your mouth up like you got SARS

Given that SARS never really panned out as a pandemic, I imagine that in the future, many people will have no idea what that reference was about unless they look it up.

What other lyrics have references that were obvious to listeners at the time but whose meaning is or will soon be lost because they just didn't have the staying power?

(Counting down to amusing comments such as "I want my MTV"...)

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Monday, 8 May 2006 19:57 (nineteen years ago)

"hold you like i hold that bakelite in my hands"

― p@reene (Pareene), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

Lou Reed's New York album leaps to mind. Particularly the song Hold On.

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

Surely that line would be improved if it went
"Ooh girl your breath is harsh
like you got some old food caught in your moustache"
I know it only works in an English accent but really, harsh/sars is plain rotten.

― dr lulu (dr lulu), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:08 (nineteen years ago)

If you take historical references to also include pop culture references, the Beastie Boys own this thread.

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

"Bush Was Right" by the Right Brothers

― max, Monday, 8 May 2006 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

"you won't find us on AltaVista"

― fandango (fandango), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

"Slash dot dash"

― Eppy (Eppy), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:50 (nineteen years ago)

"Lyrics whose historical references are or will someday soon be lost"

all of them. Stuff becomes relatively incomprehensible once its been around for more than a couple generations - any music roughly 50 years or older requires some "translation" most of the time.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:51 (nineteen years ago)

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00002MT20.08.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Monday, 8 May 2006 20:54 (nineteen years ago)

all of them.

Eh, I dunno about that. Sticking to diseases, we probably will recall AIDS for a long time even if we cure it tomorrow (I would still know what a Polio reference is if I ever hear a song reference that disease).

Some things are big enough that there will always be some point of reference. Will we ever forget "Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming?" How about 9/11 or WWII, etc?

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Monday, 8 May 2006 21:30 (nineteen years ago)

Eminem's reference to "that Y2K thing" on The Marshall Mathers LP. Many people were freaked about Y2K; then it passed without mishap. Little did we know what was on the horizon about 20 months later.

― mike a, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 02:35 (nineteen years ago)

Also: many, many references to writing "letters" and "dialing" telephones. (Those won't be "forgotten" as much as "quaint," perhaps.)

― mike a, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 02:38 (nineteen years ago)

Every single anti-Bush protest song. (see: Neil Young, Anti-Flag.)

Every single pro-Bush/America country song. (See: Toby Keith.)

"Protest" songs are, in all but the most exceptional cases, doomed to age poorly. I mean, Roger Waters albums are fun excursions for students of history, but how many teenagers just getting into "The Floyd" are going to understand references to "Haig" or "Begin" or even "Brezhnev" or "Thatcher" these days?

And how many people beyond aging boomers really "get" the full import of "tin soldiers and Nixon's coming" anyways?

― vartman (novaheat), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 05:43 (nineteen years ago)

Damn, that Screwball LP is really great, despite the silly title.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 05:56 (nineteen years ago)

Not to be a total nerd, but there will always be historians who get all the references. Lost to the general public perhaps, but as a historian, I object to the notion of lost history, especially when it comes to an era that is hellbent on preserving every scrap of recordable shit possible. I'm not even sure if a forgotten past is possible in our period. There are definitely some lyrics that are forgettable though.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 05:57 (nineteen years ago)

Oh yeah, and that's not totally serious, just a silly, if true, observation.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 05:57 (nineteen years ago)

"We form like Voltron"

― cws (cws), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 06:04 (nineteen years ago)

OH WAIT I guess that's a pop cuclture reference and totally doesn't apply to this thread. SORRY IGNORE ME.

― cws (cws), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 06:06 (nineteen years ago)

were there ever any lyrics referencing the early days of the internet? i.e. "i dial you up like prodigy" or something

― gear (gear), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 06:37 (nineteen years ago)

Symantec Revolution
We're givin' you sweet solutions
John Thompson's here to move ya
What he says I'm sure will groove ya
Symantec's growin' fat so come along
Our people our what makes us strong
In Sydney, Paris, and Orlando
Global consistency wherever you go
GLP's our proof
We know our stuff
Nokia and Chevron think we're tough.

― jergins (jergins), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 06:43 (nineteen years ago)

Prince "Annie Christian" - "everybody say Abscam"

― dave q (listerine), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 07:18 (nineteen years ago)

in the glorious future all pop lyrics will be purged of historical references in favour of the time-honoured, pure themes of teenage romance and heartbreak

― Comrade Stalinbop, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 12:02 (nineteen years ago)

Dave Bowie

"Pour me out another 'phone, I'll ring and see if our friends are home"

See, mobiles are so easy, they can be poured out. But it seems they are unable to receive calls, as otherwise their friends could pour out their phone and answer it wherever they were. But they can't. Because if they could, our Dave wouldn't necessarily know if they were home. or not.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 12:23 (nineteen years ago)

All those hiphop tracks about pagers, in that brief 3-year period when people thought pagers were going to become big.

― Siegbran (eofor), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

"...'Cause I'm just a teenager, with a little bit of gold and a pager."

Why hasn't anybody mentioned "We Didn't Start the Fire" yet? Totally unacceptable.

The song, I mean.

― owen moorhead (i heart daniel miller), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 13:45 (nineteen years ago)

"Protest" songs are, in all but the most exceptional cases, doomed to age poorly.

Thing is, just because a historical reference is forgotten or "lost" doesn't necessarily mean it ages poorly. For me, Woody Guthrie songs like "Ludlow Massacre" and "1913 Massacre" became more affecting given that I was not familiar with the events detailed in the songs prior to listening. Horrible events that go unremembered seem even more tragic, no? I'd say they have aged well, despite being forgotten.

― erklie (erklie), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:43 (nineteen years ago)

but yeah, that's a different thing than name-dropping Fred Durst or whatever

― erklie (erklie), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:45 (nineteen years ago)

what's that biggie line about kids younger than him having pagers?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

Gap Band, "Beep A Freak"

― hank (hank s), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

Missy Elliot: "Top model diva, but my name not Eva" in reference to
America's Next Top Model winner Eva Pigford.

― LeRooLeRoo (Seb), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 20:39 (nineteen years ago)

REM's 'End Of The World...' I mean, it almost is now, right?

― S- (sgh), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 03:47 (nineteen years ago)

My god, I had a DREAM about this thread last night. Creepy.
Anyway, my answer in the dream was Prince's Kiss and so it shall be in reality:
"You don't have to watch Dynasty / To have an attitude"

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 04:23 (nineteen years ago)

Every song by Half Man Half Biscuit. Even now you'd need a guide to get half their references. Oh. Here it is.

http://cobweb.businesscollaborator.com/hmhb/records/index.htm

― Lowrider, Wednesday, 10 May 2006 14:20 (nineteen years ago)

SARS will be remembered longer than sizzurp, maybe.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 14:22 (nineteen years ago)

Sarszzurp

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 14:24 (nineteen years ago)

HMHB's references won't be "lost", unless you're implying that Thomas Tallis' (the composer not the ILMer) stronghold on popular culture is about to secede, or that half of East Anglia will soon be wiped off the map.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 14:30 (nineteen years ago)

similar to mike a's posts about eminem going on about Y2K -- pre-2000 busta rhymes also went on and on all about Y2K and the bad shit that was supposed to happen then.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 17:59 (nineteen years ago)

Not totally on topic, but I just heard "Bust a Move" in a dr.'s office:

New movie's showin', so you're goin',
could care less about the five you're blowin'.

― morris pavilion (samjeff), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:32 (nineteen years ago)

Ice Hockey Hair by Super Furry Animals - "Phone me, page me, fax me till I'm silly". Requires knowledge of pagers, fax machines and Lovehearts.

― Cressida Breem (neruokruokruokne?), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

"Summer" from Modest Mouse's The Fruit That Ate Itself has the band counting up the years until 2000. A pager beeps in the middle of the song, prompting the phrase, "damn, who's paging me now?". It's a sweet tune regardless.
Also, I don't get what's being discussed in many older Billy Bragg songs.

― Glading the Wanderer, Thursday, 11 May 2006 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

FSOL - ISDN

― Viz (Viz), Thursday, 11 May 2006 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

Swastikas For Noddy

― Siegbran (eofor), Thursday, 11 May 2006 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

"The rhymes I choose definitely amuse better than Dynasty or Hill Street Blues"

― mike a, Thursday, 11 May 2006 19:39 (nineteen years ago)

Surely it'll be longer than "someday soon" before references to Dynasty etc. are incomprehensible? The Missy reference to America's Next Top Model is closer to the mark, I think, because, I mean, naming the winner of the show without naming the show gives almost no clues if you didn't watch the show.

Whereas, I mean, I'm way too young to have watched Dynasty, but I know what it is - really popular TV show of the 80s - enough to interpret something like the line Mike A quotes.

So, I guess if you must write pop culture reference lyrics, either burden them with explanatory footnotes ("It's no movie / There's no Mekhi Phifer / Who is a semi-well-known-actor / In the movie this song's for") or make them so general that, assuming whatever you're referencing is popular enough to be remembered a few years down the line, the basic idea will still come across. PS, this is a recipe for really empty and pointless lyrics.

Context is, as always, key. In another thirty years when nobody who watched Walter Cronkite is still around, people will still understand Dylan when he says "I was sittin' home alone one night / In LA watchin' ol' Cronkite on the seven-o-clock news." Although, I suppose if they stop having the news or Los Angeles falls into the ocean anything is possible...

I'm not touching "One Week" with a ten foot pole though.

― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Thursday, 11 May 2006 20:57 (nineteen years ago)

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