# Earliest Song To Mention The Internet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 26, 2015, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208 "2015-07-26T03:03:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/1 "2015-07-26T03:03:38Z")
Listening to the song _The Adventures of Larry and Tina_, which mentions the Internet, I began to wonder what is the first song to make such a reference. The above song came out in 2008. Surely there are earlier song, but I can’t think of any. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/2 "2015-07-26T03:07:22Z")
Weird Al - It’s All About The Pentiums “You’re the biggest joke on the internet”. Released 1999. > **[It's All About the Pentiums](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_All_About_the_Pentiums)** > > "It's All About the Pentiums" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of "It's All About the Benjamins (Rock Remix)" by Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs and focuses on the narrator's obsession with his computer's hardware. The name of the song reflects this in its title with its referral to the Pentium line of Intel microprocessor chips that were popular in the late nineties. It was also one of the last songs recorded for the album Running With Scissors. > Yankovic spoke to Sean Combs personally o... Anyone got an earlier reference? ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/3 "2015-07-26T03:10:12Z")
Strong first response, and quick too. Wonder if it can be beaten. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/4 "2015-07-26T03:13:30Z")
Rilo Kiley’s “Papillon” (released in 1999) includes: _The computer’s still on And the webpage is alt-dot-com_ BTW, alt. com is NSFW – it’s an “alternative lifestyle” BDSM site, put into the lyrics as sort of a joke so people would look it up out of curiosity. So not only is it an early song mentioning the internet, it also trolls you 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/5 "2015-07-26T03:14:12Z")
_Avenue Q_ was written in 2002, which would mean that “The Internet is for Porn” predates the OP’s example (though not Eliahna’s Weird Al). ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/6 "2015-07-26T03:15:19Z")
I was going to say Todd Rundgren’s “I hate my frickin’ ISP” and Aaron Carter’s “My Internet Girl” but those are 2000. How about Britney Spears, off her first album in January 1999 - “E-mail my heart” ---
**Author:** ![Waymore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/7 "2015-07-26T03:16:56Z")
Seems like 1999 is the current record. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/8 "2015-07-26T03:23:10Z")
Prince had a song “emale” from his album Emancipation in 1996: > [@](#): > > [Www.emale.com](http://Www.emale.com) > The king takes the pawn > [Www.emale.com](http://Www.emale.com) > It’s on, it’s on, it’s on ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/9 "2015-07-26T03:28:18Z")
…And he doesn’t even own that domain? Sloppy, sloppy. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/10 "2015-07-26T06:20:21Z")
I feel I remember some early reference to the internet in a They Might Be Giants song. But I can’t find the specific song. ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/11 "2015-07-26T07:00:01Z")
Rush, “Virtuality” _Net boy, net girl Send your impulse round the world Put your message in a modem And throw it in the cyber sea_ It was on the Test for Echo album released in September '96, two months before Emancipation came out. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/12 "2015-07-26T07:42:38Z")
I don’t know if we get to count this one, but “Computer Love”, by Kraftwerk, is from _1981_ and definitely seems to be about online dating. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/13 "2015-07-26T09:35:56Z")
_Flip Your Wig_ the 1985 album by the American punk band, **Hüsker Dü** contained [Divide and Conquer](http://www.metrolyrics.com/divide-and-conquer-lyrics-husker-du.html). > [@](#): > > Well they divided up all the land > And we’ve got states and cities > Cities have their neighborhoods > And more subdivisions > > There’s countries divided by walls > Oceans and latitudes > And longitude, longing to find out > Just what they’re missing > > They’re lots of area codes > And nine digit zip codes > Secret decoder ring codes > Arteries, shopping nodes > > We’ll invent some new computers > Link up the global village > And get AP, UPI, and Reuters > To tell everybody the news ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/14 "2015-07-26T12:01:57Z")
This [Mazda ad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4n4hBOAzhs) from 1998 has a re-purposing of “88 Lines About 44 Women” with a line saying “Charlie works in Cyberspace. Backslash Dot Com All day Long.” ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/15 "2015-07-26T12:46:55Z")
Poe’s 1995 song “Hello” contains a bunch of cyber-buzz words like writing a song after watching Hackers or an episode of CSI. > [@](#): > > I can’t see your face > But you left a trace on a data back-road > That I almost erased > […] > I lost my way home > I’m cut off from the main line > Like a disconnected modem > […] > Word has it on the wire > That you don’t who you are > Well if you could jack into my brain > You’d know exactly what you mean here > […] > I don’t have the password > But the path is chainlinked > So if you’ve got the time > Set up the tone to sync ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/16 "2015-07-26T13:18:32Z")
I nominate _The Relay_ by the Who: > [@](#): > > From tree to tree, from you to me, > Traveling twice as fast as on any freeway, > Every single dream, wrapped up in the scheme, > They all get carried on the relay. It was part of Townshend’s Lifehouse concept album wherein the populace spends most of its time in “experience suits” in lieu of interacting with reality. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/17 "2015-07-26T13:37:32Z")
I find it surprising that mid 90’s is the earliest for reference. Let’s face it that’s when the world wide web brought it to the modern popularity. However, email, ftp, and usenet groups have been on their for at least 10 years before this. No songs mention this? Interesting if there’s any mention of bulletin boards, how I first came across a net like entity, of course some of these, such as compuserve, also tied into usenet and the internet… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/18 "2015-07-26T15:36:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Quimby** : > > This Mazda ad from 1998 has a re-purposing of “88 Lines About 44 Women” with a line saying “Charlie works in Cyberspace. Backslash Dot Com All day Long.” Which is absurd, because backslashes almost never show up in Internet addresses, and slashes (which do show up) would never directly precede the dot com. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/19 "2015-07-26T16:05:34Z")
This morning I happened to be listening to [Surfonic Water Revival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfonic_Water_Revival), an album of Christian Surf music from 1998. One of the songs, “The Net,” seems to be about surfing the internet, if I’m interpreting it correctly (and I’m not absolutely sure that I am). (If you want to judge for yourself, lyrics are [here](http://www.thelostdogs.com/music/thenet.html) and the song can be heard [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9s14iO01UA) on YouTube.) ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208/20 "2015-07-26T16:34:00Z")
“Interior Lulu” by Marillion **specifically** mentions the Internet: We rejoice at being “connected” Without touching Thank god for the internet We stare at our screens All our lives What a waste of eyes The song was released on their 1999 album _[marillion.com](http://marillion.com)_, however it was originally written, recorded, and then left off of their 1998 album _Radiation_. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-song-to-mention-the-internet/726208.md?page=2)