I remember being plagued by this the first time around.
Basically, a folkie song with a strident yet wobbly vocal bemoaning the fact that it's all very easy to have a cup of tea or coffee or get a car if all you have to do is push a button.
"What about you and me?" is the message. And I would say "how do you mean?"
Because the people bemoaning it have already got cars?
It's like that "little boxes" song, yeah lol at all the people who can only afford cheap housing that looks the same as the next door one. You live in a nice castle, right? Playing yr songs for the king to laff at.
Can anyone else remember when they were four?
― Mark G, Monday, 14 March 2011 15:17 (fourteen years ago)
I think you misunderstand the little boxes song.
― Play with human heads instead of playing with balls (kkvgz), Monday, 14 March 2011 15:59 (fourteen years ago)
because it is lol at the rich people.
or middle class, really.
― Play with human heads instead of playing with balls (kkvgz), Monday, 14 March 2011 16:01 (fourteen years ago)
Yeah, I know that now...
― Mark G, Monday, 14 March 2011 16:03 (fourteen years ago)
The button one is dumb as dirt though, I'll give you that. The songwriter doesn't get that you can trade off doing hard work on some thankless task for doing hard work on something more beneficial.
― Play with human heads instead of playing with balls (kkvgz), Monday, 14 March 2011 16:06 (fourteen years ago)
Tony Hatch, apparently.
Singer is his sister, also apparently.
― Mark G, Monday, 14 March 2011 16:07 (fourteen years ago)
Awesome sexual euphemism potential unfulfilled.
― Play with human heads instead of playing with balls (kkvgz), Monday, 14 March 2011 16:10 (fourteen years ago)
"You push a little button and you make a motor car"
That's some alternate universe....
― Mark G, Monday, 14 March 2011 16:13 (fourteen years ago)
sounds like a Jetsons reference
― ancient, but very sexy (DJP), Monday, 14 March 2011 16:20 (fourteen years ago)
i hate that little button song...
― Ask Nult What Your Country Can Do For You (Local Garda), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:16 (fourteen years ago)
I love that little button song, it's Tony Hatch so not exackly a folk tune, and I think u may be misconstruing the lyric inasmuch as it bears contemplating
― The north-east's Number 2 children's party magician (Noodle Vague), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:17 (fourteen years ago)
I don't know the little button song but the worst kind of message song is one that nags ordinary people for being sheep-brained drones. I can see what Malvina Reynolds was trying to say but my god it comes off as condescending.
― I've been dancing since 9 and I'm tired and hungry (Dorianlynskey), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:18 (fourteen years ago)
the text is basically "oh it's a soulless mechanized world, soon there will be no place for human beings at all" which isn't much of anything but is hardly a celebration of 60s Capitalist excess
― The north-east's Number 2 children's party magician (Noodle Vague), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:19 (fourteen years ago)
plus the punchline is a "getting nuked would suck" twist so hey ho
― The north-east's Number 2 children's party magician (Noodle Vague), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:23 (fourteen years ago)
agree that we are all unique special flowers and should be celebrated in song tho
― The north-east's Number 2 children's party magician (Noodle Vague), Monday, 14 March 2011 17:25 (fourteen years ago)
i just can't get over pop music that essentially sounds like a 90-year-old inaccurately complaining about futuristic vistas that don't exist. eg the line about "push a little button and you get a motorcar." that plus the megalomania of the "what about you and me".
― Ask Nult What Your Country Can Do For You (Local Garda), Monday, 14 March 2011 22:49 (fourteen years ago)
"everything's going mad"
― Mark G, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 12:25 (fourteen years ago)