Bandaid’s “Do they know it’s Christmas”? The USA for Africa’s “We are the World” and Canada’s Northern Lights “Tears are Not enough” are slices of the exact time they were recorded. A year later or earlier they wouldn’t have had the same ensemble casts. Very much a product of their time.
Not that datedness is even measurable, but even so, it seems there are several categories of it:
Songs about contemporary fads such as Hula Hoops, Kung-fu, CB radios, or whatnot
Songs mentioning celebrities popular at the time of recording
Songs devoted to commemorating particular historical events
Songs evincing attitudes now considered unenlightened or old-fashioned
Songs recorded in a fleetingly popular musical style
Whatever I haven’t thought of
So it seems the question needs to be broken up into the different sections to avoid the apples, oranges, onions kind of comparison.
My contribution is when the girls ask “Mr. Sandman” to bring them a dream with “lots of wavy hair like Lib-er-a-ce.” That he was ever considered a sex symbol by women makes the song sound like a real museum piece!
Cars by Gary Numan is solid 79/80.
Creep by Radiohead = no when but 1992.
I really liked the hand action on the microphone. Sort of went well with the song.
Put Another Nickel In . . . ."
(Nickelodeons were little movie machines popular in the early 20th century.)
Santa Baby, as performed by Eartha Kitt.
Gots ta be late 1953. No way is she going to be asking for a convertible from the year-end model clearance (even a light blue one).
Village People Ready for the 80s
Melanie’s (I Got a Brand New Pair of Rollerskates, You Got a) Brand New Key. I don’t even know what a rollerskate key does. Supposedly there’s some other meanings to the song too…
If that’s a serious question, a skate key is essentially a small wrench used to tighten old fashioned strap-on skates. (And loosen them to take them off.) I don’t know if you can even get new skates like that anymore, although you can find vintage ones on eBay.
A rollerskate key is basically a very simple socket wrench, used to tighten the adjustable parts of a rollerskate so they don’t expand and release your shoe as you go hurtling down a concrete sidewalk at speeds approaching six miles per hour.
Missed the edit window:
The story making the rounds at my junior college was that this device was nicknamed a “rollerskate” by people who used them to roll joints, and that a “key” referred to a kilogram (or “key”) of marijuana.
You must have had the high quality ones. We had to take them off and carry them to go that fast.
Heck, there’s a whole bunch of these songs, for example
“Eighties” - Killing Joke (Living in the '80s)
“Goodbye '70s” - Yaz
“End of the Century”- Ramones (it’s the end, the end of the '70s)
Even “Heat of the Moment” - Asia (And Now you find yourself in '82)
I guess we can reuse them in around 70 years, but that won’t work for…of course…“1999” - Prince (2000-0-0 Party Over, oops, out of time)
Ha! I’m not sure what I thought they were saying (“And now you find yourself an empty tomb”?) but it wasn’t that!
ETA:
And now you find yourself an empty tomb
The disco hot spots on the job for you
D’oh!
I was going to say Little Egypt by Elvis. For anyone born in “Phoenix Arizona 1949” to be suitably nubile as to be worth writing a song about, she has to be late teens, early 20s, which fits with the Elvis TV special of 1968.
But then I discovered that he did the song in Roustabout in 1964, when LE would have been 15. And the song was first a hit in 1961 for The Coasters, when she would have been 12. Maybe that version had her born in 1939.
Another candidate, this time for thematic datedness, is Signs, by the Five Man Electrical Band. Could only be written in the late 60s.
She wasn’t born in 1949, she got the tattoo of a cowboy in 1949.
It’s an iconic name, referring to a real dancer who was twelve years gone in 1949!:
Thought about that, but the arithmetic still doesnt work. She would have had to have been 18 in 1949, which would make her 30 in 1961, a little too old to fit the context of the song. Ingenue types of the era couldn’t be that old.
And Wikipedia points to three women who were the “original” Little Egypt, until the title became a generic one for “belly dancers”.
It’s probably not worth resurrecting this thread, but yesterday I thought of another song full of dated references: Dolly Parton’s Tits by MacLean MacLean
For such a short song, it’s got:
- Evel Knievel
- Rex Humbard and Maude Aimee
- Pierre (Trudeau) French-kissing Rene (Levesque)
- Ed Allen
- and Dolly Parton, of course