Amusing Anachronistic Bits of Culture

[Baron_Greenback]

@Mr.Greenjeans

Well she was just seventeen
And you know what I mean…

Not under age in England and Wales though - heterosexual age of consent has been 16 since 1885.

[Colibri]

@Mr.Greenjeans

Well she was just seventeen
And you know what I mean…

@Baron_Greenback

Not under age in England and Wales though - heterosexual age of consent has been 16 since 1885.

Seventeen is above the age of consent in Canada and 38 US states as well.

[terentii]

@Baron_Greenback

Not under age in England and Wales though - heterosexual age of consent has been 16 since 1885.

So why can’t 16-year-olds pose naked for magazines in Britain anymore?

[JRDelirious]

@terentii

So why can’t 16-year-olds pose naked for magazines in Britain anymore?

Different law. AOC for private sex and age for publication of nude photo/video are separate matters. 18 makes Brit publications and their websites available in the US and EU.

[Lamia]

@Pantastic

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.

How high did “Atom Bomb Baby” chart in the 1950s? I’d never heard of it before this thread, and while I’m sure there are bona fide hits of the era that I’ve never heard of, neither the song nor the group that recorded it appears to even have a Wikipedia entry.

Personally, I’d say the thing about the song that’s aged least well is one of the few lines that isn’t about nuclear weapons. That “I want her in my wigwam” bit seems rather un-PC.

I couldn’t tell you anything about the ReadyGoes, I just came across their song via Google, but the Who song (“Athena”) I mentioned upthread was a top 40 hit – the last for the band. Wikipedia tells me there was also a Fluke song called “Atom Bomb” that was a minor hit in the UK (went to #20) in the late '90s. It was created for the soundtrack of a video game that I’m unfamiliar with and it’s not clear to me whether the repeated line “Baby got an atom bomb” is intended literally, but the subject of the song is apparently a sexy bad-ass woman. It does not seem to be an anti-war or anti-nuclear weapons protest song of any sort.

@Colibri

Seventy years after their last use in warfare, atomic weapons are much less in the public conciousness, and hence perhaps more taboo.

I suspect it’s not so much taboo now as kinda passé. I very much doubt that metaphors about nuclear weapons are shocking or offensive to most young people today. Someone who was trying to be provocative would probably go for some sort of terrorism-related metaphor. I don’t know of any serious examples of this, but The Lonely Island has done it as comedy with “Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)”. Broken link because the lyrics are very NSFW: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Jr9Kaa1sycs

[nearwildheaven]

Don’t forget Benny Margolis’ “Into The Night” or KISS’ “Christine Sixteen”.

Or, for that matter, “I Love Rock’n’Roll”.

[nearwildheaven]

Or, if you want to go to extremes, there’s always GG Allin’s

[spoiler]“Expose Yourself To Kids”.

NSFW.

GG Allin - Expose Yourself to Kids

[kaylasdad99]

@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!

I don’t think I’m familiar with that song, but with Young Girl and Woman, Woman under his belt, I don’t think this hapless schmoe needs any of my attention.

[Blake]

@Pantastic

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.

I no longer understand what you think is anachronistic here.

“Jauntily using features of nuclear weapons to show how pretty a girl is” is a highly specific outcome of song writing. Has it ever been common? Hell, has it ever been done more than once? If so, can you name another two songs from the era that do this?

And if it was never common, then in what sense is it anachronistic? It was highly unusual odd at the time the song was released, and it is highly unusual now. That’s not an anachronism. It’s just odd.

I’ll point out that a common nickname for Olivia Newton John in the 1980s was “Olivia Neutron Bomb”. So it’s mot like comparing women to nuclear weapons in the 80s was somehow taboo. It’s just that it wasn’t done in song. But them as far as we can tell, it’s only been done once in the history of the world.

Jauntily using features of weapons to show how pretty a girl is not in any way anachronistic. It’s been a standard device in music for at least 50 years to compare women to knives, guns and bombs, and it continues to this day. The same is true of comparing attractive women to destructive events: hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves, floods etc.

The fact that one song once compared a woman to specific type of bomb doe snot make that song anachronistic. There’s probably only one song that compares a woman to any specific type of weapon (uzi, shotgun, napalm etc.) or any specific type of mass destruction (hurricane, earthquake etc). That doesn’t make any of these songs anachronistic. It just means that it’s a very specific comparison and unlikely to be repeated by chance.

[Idle_Thoughts]

@Rick_Kitchen

“Brick” by Ben Folds Five?

Please don’t post full song lyrics.

[EinsteinsHund]

@Colibri

Stray Cat Blues, by the Rolling Stones, 1968.

@Shoeless

In ZZ Top’s “Francine”, Francine just turned thirteen.

In the Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out version, the stray cat girl is also thirteen.

Btw., I was surprised that the Sticky Fingers’ “Super Deluxe” rerelase from 2015 contained two live versions from 1971 where the girl’s age is still thirteen. I mean, it’s one thing to sell Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out today as a historical recording with that bit untouched (I’m all for that and don’t like retroactive bowdlerizing of art works), but putting out previously unreleased versions today? At least surprising.

[thelurkinghorror]

@EinsteinsHund

In the Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out version, the stray cat girl is also thirteen.

Btw., I was surprised that the Sticky Fingers’ “Super Deluxe” rerelase from 2015 contained two live versions from 1971 where the girl’s age is still thirteen. I mean, it’s one thing to sell Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out today as a historical recording with that bit untouched (I’m all for that and don’t like retroactive bowdlerizing of art works), but putting out previously unreleased versions today? At least surprising.

“Annie’s twelve years old, in two more she’ll be a whore”
Sublime 1996, which is (more) modern and got plenty of play.

I remember some DJ of the era going on a rant after someone complained about the song, and he pointed out that songs aren’t necessarily the singer’s opinion and it’s called the “Wrong Way” and not the “Right Way.”

[EinsteinsHund]

@thelurkinghorror

“Annie’s twelve years old, in two more she’ll be a whore”
Sublime 1996, which is (more) modern and got plenty of play.

I remember some DJ of the era going on a rant after someone complained about the song, and he pointed out that songs aren’t necessarily the singer’s opinion and it’s called the “Wrong Way” and not the “Right Way.”

I don’t know the Sublime song, but I think the sensitivities about sexual exploit of minors are much stronger today than in 1996, as well as they were stronger in 1996 than in 1970.

The DJ’s argument is generally a very good one, one I very often make myself: the person in the song is NOT the performer/writer. But some songs are just very, very sleazy, and Stray Cat Blues is probably the sleaziest song I know.

ETA: of course except all those Zappa songs…

[dasmoocher]

Now here’s nostalgia for you:

We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say.

Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

[gigi]

@nearwildheaven

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”

My Mom’s was

Glory glory hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
I bopped her on the bean with a rotten tangerine
Her teeth went marching on

[Voyager]

@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

Also “Vagabond Virgin” by Traffic - I’m not linking to the lyrics because I’m at work.

[Voyager]

@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. Sure, “99 luftballoons” was a big hit in the 80s, but it hides it’s subject matter (especially playing the German version in the US) and it’s actually more of a protest song. Other examples that I could think of either portray them in a negative light or are from obscure punk/metal/etc. bands that aren’t coming anywhere near being a ‘hit song’. Here’s a link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXSUEU7ISfQ

What other weird songs/shows/books/etc. that sound really off now but were considered mainstream in their time have you encountered?

Not a book or song, but remember where the name of the bikini bathing suit came from. And that was back when getting blown up like the island was very possible.

[drad_dog]

@Voyager

Not a book or song, but remember where the name of the bikini bathing suit came from. And that was back when getting blown up like the island was very possible.

Carl Perkins “Tennessee” 1956:

They make bombs they say, that can blow up our world, dear
Well a country boy like me, I will agree
But if all you folks out there can remember
They made the first atomic bomb in Tennessee

Let’s give old Tennessee credit for music
As they play it up in Nashville everyday
Let’s give old Tennessee credit for music
As they play it in that old hillbilly way
Read more: Carl Perkins - Tennessee Lyrics | LetsSingIt Lyrics
LetsSingIt - Your favorite Music Community

[drad_dog]

I’ve been to Nagasaki Hiroshima too the same I did to them baby I can do to you
Cause I’m a Fujiyama mama and I’m just about to blow my top
Fujiyama-yama Fujiyama
And when I start erupting ain’t nobody gonna make me stop

I drink a quart of sakey smoke dynamite
I chase it with tobaccy and then shoot out the light
Cause I’m a Fujiyama mama…
[ guitar ]
Well you can talk about me say that I’m mean
I’ll blow your head off baby with nitroglycerine
Cause I’m a Fujiyama mama…

Well you can say I’m crazy stone deaf and dumb
But I can cause destruction just like the atom bomb
Cause I’m a Fujiyama mama…
I drink a quart of sakey…

Songwriters

Read more: Wanda Jackson - Fujiyama Mama Lyrics | MetroLyrics

[Lemur866]

I still can’t understand how “Brick” is anachronistic.

It’s not that there’s an argument that it’s anachronistic, and I disagree with the argument. It’s that I don’t understand the argument.

What’s anachronistic about it?