# Amusing Anachronistic Bits of Culture **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 1, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873 "2016-07-01T17:00:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Oly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oly/32/8255_2.png) [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/41 "2016-07-02T18:53:08Z")
Whenever I hear one of those oldie pop songs that sing gleefully about getting married (not just being/staying together, but specifically tying the knot), I think that that just wouldn’t fly so much with kids today. E.g. Going to the Chapel, Bus Stop by the Hollies, Get Me To The Church On Time, Leaving On A Jet Plane, If I Were A Carpenter, Wedding Bell Blues, I Married An Angel - just off the top of my head. There’s also a lot of violent and crude things adults (almost exclusively male, I’d guess) used to teach kids (also probably mostly male) that wouldn’t be cottoned to today. For example, I remember my Webelo Scout master teaching us bunch of third graders the following ditty by the campfire: (to the tune of Glory Hallelujah) _Glory glory Hallelujah Teacher hit me with a ruler So I came through the door With a snub nose 44 Now teacher don’t teach no more_ ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/42 "2016-07-02T19:18:11Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Gary Puckett and The Union Gap’s “This Girl is a Woman Now” does not refer to her age, but to the fact that she’s had sex! You realize that the songs of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, when put in a specific order, tell a coherent story? “Young Girl” – Singer is attracted to a young girl. “Lady Willpower” – She’s just turned 18. It’s now or never. “This Girl is a Woman Now” – The morning after “Woman, Woman” – have you got cheating on your mind? “Over You” – She’s left him ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/43 "2016-07-02T19:36:43Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > The first time I heard this song even in 1975, I immediately thought ‘this is about a 6’ 3" black transvestite prostitute.’ I still think that today. I was born in 1971, so I only encountered the song with any kind of rationality in the 80s, and it always makes me think “Grace Jones”. Not the prostitute bit, but the rest. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/44 "2016-07-02T19:37:55Z")
> [@Oly](#): > > There’s also a lot of violent and crude things adults (almost exclusively male, I’d guess) used to teach kids (also probably mostly male) that wouldn’t be cottoned to today. For example, I remember my Webelo Scout master teaching us bunch of third graders the following ditty by the campfire: > > (to the tune of Glory Hallelujah) > > _Glory glory Hallelujah > Teacher hit me with a ruler > So I came through the door > With a snub nose 44 > Now teacher don’t teach no more_ I learned how to play “House of the Rising Sun” on guitar from a nun. A nun! ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/45 "2016-07-02T22:33:41Z")
I have to confess I don’t understand what is anachronistic about most of the examples in this thread, and am not sure what sort of thing the OP is looking for. > [@Pantastic](#): > > I’ve been playing Fallout 4 recently, and one of the songs on the soundtrack is “Atom Bomb”, a catchy little tune comparing a hot chick to a nuclear weapon. I like it because I have a dark sense of humor, but I can’t imagine a jaunty tune openly about nuclear weapons being a hit in my lifetime. I don’t know how old you are, but The Who’s 1982 “Athena” also compares a hot chick to a nuclear weapon. It contains the repeated line “She’s just a girl (she’s a bomb)”. Since Athena was the Greek goddess of war many Who fans speculated that the song was some sort of metaphor about politicians being obsessed with nuclear weapons, but it eventually came out that it was in fact written as just a regular love song. The almost identical demo version was called “Theresa”, inspired by Pete Townshend’s unrequited infatuation with actress Theresa Russell. For the final version he swapped her real name for a similar one that fit the meter and rhyme scheme. > [@Oly](#): > > Whenever I hear one of those oldie pop songs that sing gleefully about getting married (not just being/staying together, but specifically tying the knot), I think that that just wouldn’t fly so much with kids today. It wasn’t a huge hit, but Bruno Mars’s “Marry You” got a fair amount of airplay a few years back. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/46 "2016-07-02T22:46:20Z")
Athena was the Greek goddess of Wisdom. Ares was the God of War. You may have mixed her up with war because of her prominence in the _Iliad._ ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/47 "2016-07-02T23:40:19Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Athena was the Greek goddess of Wisdom. Ares was the God of War. You may have mixed her up with war because of her prominence in the _Iliad._ Athena was the goddess of a lot of things, including war. You can Google it if you don’t believe me, but since the Who song wasn’t intended to be about the goddess in the first place it’s not really relevant to this thread. I mentioned “Athena” as a post-1950s example of a song in which a desirable woman is compared to a bomb. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/48 "2016-07-02T23:49:12Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Athena was the Greek goddess of Wisdom. Ares was the God of War. You may have mixed her up with war because of her prominence in the _Iliad._ [She](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena) was the goddess of many things; military strategy was one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/49 "2016-07-02T23:51:29Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Flanders and Swan’s “[Madeira, My Dear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW_zi8n4HDQ)” is not as funny as it once was. Another item in the _“Humorous Songs by Flanders and Swann on the Subject of Date Rape That Are Not As Funny As They Used To Be”_ category is the “Tonga song” from “Songs For Our Time”: > [@](#): > > Both: Oh, it’s hard to say… > Flanders: “Oly-ma-kitty-luca-chi-chi-chi” > Both: But in Tonga, that means… “No”! > > ``` > If I ever have the money, > 'Tis to Tonga I shall go. > For each lovely Tongan maiden there, > Will gladly make a date. > > And by the time she's said: > > ``` > > Flanders: “Oly-ma-kitty-luca-chi-chi-chi”, > Both: It is usually too late! :dubious: With very few exceptions, though, F&S songs have aged remarkably well and are still fun as hell to sing. All together now! _“Some talk of a Lagonda…”_ 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/50 "2016-07-03T01:54:21Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I have to confess I don’t understand what is anachronistic about most of the examples in this thread, and am not sure what sort of thing the OP is looking for. He didn’t really mean anachronistic at the time they were written, which seems to be confusing some people. What he really meant was things that “didn’t age well.” They were OK when they were written, but wouldn’t be OK if they were written now. > [@Pantastic](#): > > What other weird songs/shows/books/etc. that sound really off now but were considered mainstream in their time have you encountered? I don’t think this is too difficult to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/51 "2016-07-03T03:09:32Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > He didn’t really mean anachronistic at the time they were written, which seems to be confusing some people. What he really meant was things that “didn’t age well.” They were OK when they were written, but wouldn’t be OK if they were written now. > > I don’t think this is too difficult to understand. Well, I don’t understand why a love song using nuclear weapons as a metaphor wouldn’t be OK today. A quick Google turned up a recent-ish pop song called “[Atomic Love Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tZWs8lnFvQ)” by a band called the ReadyGoes, and there are probably other examples. If anything I’d think this sort of thing probably seemed edgier in the 1950s, when the song linked in the OP was written. I have no idea what’s supposed to be less OK about Ben Folds Five’s “Brick” today vs. when it was written in the '90s. “Having My Baby” was before my time, but I don’t think it was considered totally OK even in the '70s – according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%28You're%29_Having_My_Baby#Controversy) it was criticized for sexism, with both NOW and _Ms._ magazine giving Paul Anka sarcastic “awards” for male chauvinism. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/52 "2016-07-03T08:36:21Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It was criticized for sexism, with both NOW and _Ms._ magazine giving Paul Anka sarcastic “awards” for male chauvinism. Must have been the wrong time of the month… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/53 "2016-07-03T12:28:44Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > _Stray Cat Blues_, by the Rolling Stones, 1968. > > _Mexicali Blues_, by the Grateful Dead, 1972 > > Songs involving sex with underage girls wouldn’t pass today. > > Neither would the original cover for _Blind Faith’s_ album in 1972: > > WARNING! NSFW! > > [musicmp3spb.org](http://musicmp3spb.org/images/b/blind_faith/fblind_fait277a04538e1ea906e9820d.jpg) In ZZ Top’s “Francine”, Francine just turned thirteen. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Greenjeans](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.greenjeans/32/551_2.png) [@Mr.Greenjeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Greenjeans)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/54 "2016-07-03T13:39:15Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Songs involving sex with underage girls wouldn’t pass today. Well she was just seventeen And you know what I mean… ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/55 "2016-07-03T16:46:27Z")
“Standin’ on the Corner (Watchin’ All the Girls Go By)”: \*"Brother, they can't put you in jail for what you're thinkin'!"\* You wanna bet they can’t? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/56 "2016-07-03T19:42:08Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Also from the 80s: The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (so jaunty it was used a a High School graduation theme), Queen’s “Waitin’ for the Hammer to Fall” (one of their jauntier tunes) and the very jaunty synth-pop “I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”. > > I can’t think of any post-80s hit songs on the subject, so in that sense I guess it’s still anachronistic, just not as anachronistic as you might think. My “Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” neglected to include anything about a nuclear war or atomic weapons in the song; I know that the title/chorus is supposed to be a reference to nuclear weapons, but it’s an incredibly oblique reference that you pretty much have to be told about to get, so it doesn’t remotely count. Plus it’s an anti-nuke song not a pro-nuke song, though again it’s so oblique that you have to go to outside references to understand it. “Waitin’ for the Hammer to Fall” and “I won’t let the Sun Go down on Me” Are also both clearly anti-war songs, not songs using the awesomeness of nuclear weapons to talk about how hot a girl is. If you can get a song that talks about nuclear weapons as a cool thing that the singer compares a hot girl/guy to or some other really positive thing, it would be similar. But a song protesting the idea of nuclear war or nuclear weapons under a jaunty facade just isn’t the same as a song jauntily using features of nuclear weapons to show how pretty a girl is. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/57 "2016-07-03T19:59:25Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > All those songs on Fallout 4 were from the 1940’s-60’s. I suppose I should clarify, I was born in the 1970s so those qualify as ‘not in my lifetime’. Really I’m thinking of ‘80s on’ as the time period, since I was too young to really pick stuff up in the 70s. > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > [I Melt With You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuN6gs0AJls) Again, it hides the reference to nuclear weapons behind metaphor, it doesn’t directly mention ‘atom bombs’ or ‘radiation clouds’. And “I’ll melt with you” is much easier to interpret as metaphor than literal in a song. Also doesn’t do any kind of positive comparison with nuclear weapons, though I didn’t make that bit clear in the OP even though it’s the major piece that seems weird to me. > [@Lamia](#): > > Well, I don’t understand why a love song using nuclear weapons as a metaphor wouldn’t be OK today. A quick Google turned up a recent-ish pop song called “[Atomic Love Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tZWs8lnFvQ)” by a band called the ReadyGoes, and there are probably other examples. If anything I’d think this sort of thing probably seemed edgier in the 1950s, when the song linked in the OP was written. I didn’t say that it would be disallowed today, I said that I can’t imagine it being a hit. What’s the highest ReadyGoes charted, and did it even get to US/UK charts? It’s definitely not something I’m likely to ever hear on the radio even assuming I listened to the radio for several hours a day. And I’m pretty sure that song is trying to be edgy with the comparison, not happy and shooting for a big hit. > [@journeyman\_southpaw](#): > > Songs that are about the use of now-outdated technology are appropriate for this thread, I take it? If so then [Party Line by the Kinks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8W2PrgPIOg) is a good example. You’d have to have grown up no later than the '70s to be likely to know what a party line was. Not to me, because I’d describe that song as being about the annoyances of a piece of current life. Technology has moved on so the gripe itself isn’t ‘current life’ anymore, but it doesn’t make the style of the song seem weird to me, the way that a song about happy nukes or it’s cool if your man beats you does. A song like “Spiderwebs” from the 90s hits on 'here’s some stuff about technology we use that annoys me" in the same way. I’m not saying don’t put it in the thread, but IMO it’s a different class of ‘wrong time’. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/58 "2016-07-03T20:03:48Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > If anything I’d think this sort of thing probably seemed edgier in the 1950s, when the song linked in the OP was written. Having grown up in the 1950s and the 1960s, although people were afraid of an atomic Armageddon, the attitude about atomic weapon use was far more casual. People imagined that some use in the future was almost inevitable. Perhaps because the threat was more real, people were more willing to joke about it. Seventy years after their last use in warfare, atomic weapons are much less in the public conciousness, and hence perhaps more taboo. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/59 "2016-07-03T20:22:08Z")
> [@Oly](#): > > There’s also a lot of violent and crude things adults (almost exclusively male, I’d guess) used to teach kids (also probably mostly male) that wouldn’t be cottoned to today. For example, I remember my Webelo Scout master teaching us bunch of third graders the following ditty by the campfire: > > (to the tune of Glory Hallelujah) > > _Glory glory Hallelujah > Teacher hit me with a ruler > So I came through the door > With a snub nose 44 > Now teacher don’t teach no more_ We used to sing this on the playground at about that age! :eek: In our case, the 3rd and 4th lines were “Met her at the door/with a loaded .44” ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873/60 "2016-07-03T20:23:56Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I learned how to play “House of the Rising Sun” on guitar from a nun. A nun! We played it in junior high band in the mid 1970s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amusing-anachronistic-bits-of-culture/758873.md?page=4)