Songs that are technically/historically obsolete

No, my wife remembers the egg man coming every Saturday in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles when she was a child in the 1950s.

Milkmen also used to bring eggs; to the best of my recollection they disappeared sometime in the early 1970s. I know this because we got a dog in 1969, and he used to bark whenever he heard the milk bottles rattle in the metal carrier. The dog was fully grown by that time, so it had to have been at least a year or two into the 1970s.

I was out shopping yesterday, and “Western Union” was playing…and I thought “what ever happened to aha?”

Anybody know?

[Sorry about the hijack]

“Holidays In the Sun,” a song in which Johnny Rotten is waiting outside the Berlin Wall, has been obsolete since 1989.

“Telephone Man” by Meri Wilson. Sure, you can still get a guy from AT&T to come out to your house and you can probably even (maybe) talk him into boffing you in the kitchen, the bedroom, the hall and the wall, but he’s not going to install your phone. These days you have to plug them in yourself.

The Four Seasons’ December 1963 (Oh, What a Night) is now 'way out of date. Unless you view it as a reminiscence by someone even older than me!

http://www.midnightangel308.com/oh_what_a_night.htm

http://www.superseventies.com/sl_december1963.html

“Lawyers in Love” by Jackson Browne:

I hear the USSR will be open soon
As vacationland for
lawyers in love

“Rock this Town” by Stray Cats:

I had a whiskey on the rocks and
change of a dollar for the jukebox

“Misunderstanding” by Genesis:

Since then I’ve been running around trying to find you
I went to the places that we always go
I rang your HOUSE but got no answer
Jumped in my car, I went round there

Dude, try her on her cell.

And from “Roll Over, Beethoven,”

Long as she’s got a dime
the music will never stop

You can call “Back in the USSR” obsolete also - but I don’t know for how long.

Dunno about dime ones but nickel jukeboxes still exist.

“Telephone Line” - ELO

As last I recall, he had cancer in or of his tongue, and a female friend of his on the board whose name I don’t recall was evasive about his situation.

Nitpick: when “Operator” came out, direct-dial was already the rule. IIRC, the person singing the song is calling directory assistance, because “the number on the matchbook is old and faded”.

The theme song/title song “UHF” by Weird Al.

“Hey Ya” by Outkast-- its mention of “shake it like a Polaroid picture” was almost quaint-sounding when it came out (though IIRC there was a brief spike in Polaroid sales after its success), but it’ll be obsolete fairly soon now.

Free Nelson Mandela, by the Special AKA.

Hell, technically it was dated when it was released, because a Polaroid picture stopped being needed to be shaken in the 90’s, and doing so might actually ruin the photo.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna party like its 1999.

How about “We Are The World”, “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, and “Tears Are Not Enough”?

Anyone remember the “Sheeny Man”?

The guy who would come around and take your worthwhile junk.
That guy lived and died by ‘One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.’

I still see them.
My Mom threatened that she’d give me away to the Sheeny Man.

Whoa. It makes one wonder where “The Great Black Swamp” is. :slight_smile:

Eh, not so bad. It was in the same playful sentiment that “I’m going to give you away to the Indians” enthralled, after she called us “Wild Indians”.

Oh my god, are you me? I’ve never met anyone else on the planet who knows that song.