The Elements, by Tom Lehrer.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Hah-vard,
And there may be many others, but they haven’t been dis-cah-vard.
Several others were “discahvard”, or at any rate, assembled following the incluson of that song in the Great American Songbook.
Not really what y’all are looking for, but I have an obsolete band tune. I used to play a medley called Channel Surfing with my middle school band. It’s a cute little medley with about twenty seconds each of various TV theme songs. There’s Wheel of Fortune, Happy Days, Beverly Hills, 90210, and even Merrie Melodies. The whole thing ends with the last line of The Star-Spangled Banner followed by the kids going “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”.
None of the kids knew why there was the national anthem followed by static. In their world, the TV never goes “off the air”.
Also, Sheryl Crow’s Soak Up the Sun sings about sitting back with “my 45’s on”. How many kids think she’s talking about some sort of gun, not single records?
I don’t expect anyone to remember these songs, as I collect very obscure tunes, but here goes…
MODERN DAY MAGIC, by Marie Cain
I sit myself down,
And put a piece of plastic on a round revolving tray.
I turn up the sound,
And suddenly I hear your voice,
You sing forever, forever, forever…
Oh, modern day magic keeps you with me
Even though we’re apart.
I wish there were a modern day magic
That could mend a broken heart.
(This was written with LP records in mind, but it seemed to work when LPs became CDs. It doesn’t work with downloads.)
PUT ME IN THE MOVIES, by Dick Monda
Cinderella cowboy,
I could play a love scene,
Technicolor bad guys,
X or G or PG.
Put me in the movies,
I could be a movie star.
Put me in the movies
You could paint my face green.
Put me in the movies,
Dracula or Frankenstein.
Put me in the movies,
I could be a movie star.
SAN FRANSISCO (unknown writer)
Hey, Mister Business Man
I’ve got the feeling we’ve met before.
I know it wasn’t here in your new career
On the executive floor.
Hey, Mister Business Man
The clothes you’re wearing are different now
From your worn-out jeans and your gypsy beads,
You’ve lost it all somehow.
What happened to
The friends we knew
In San Francisco?
They had flowers in their hair,
There was music everywhere
Back in '69.
Like you and me
They long to be
In San Francisco.
We were walking in the sun,
Had peace with everyone
Back in '69.
SATURDAY MATINEE, by Paul Jabara
Dear Mr. Manager of the neighborhood movie theater,
My name is Irene and I am only thirteen,
I’m in distress,
My life’s a mess.
You see my weekend routine has been in your mezzanine
Every morning til the stroke of four,
Dreaming I could be the queen
Of that same silver screen,
But you don’t show the matinee no more!
Bring back that Saturday matinee movie show,
I swear I’ll run away
If you don’t open that door.
Cause where’s a kid to go
When he’s bored with just TV?
There’s nothing like the view you get
From that balcony!
KISSING BOOTH, by Bill LaBounty
Pardon me, Compadre,
May I have this place in line?
You see, the woman I love is standing there
Underneath that cardboard sign,
And saying,
“Fifty cents a hug at the kissing booth,
To buy a little love at the kissing booth.”
Loan me fifty cents for the kissing booth.
Roll Over Beethoven
I’m gonna write a little letter,
Gonna mail it to my local dj.
Its a rockin rhythm record
I want my jockey to play.
Run For You Life
Well I’d rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man ( :eek: )
Fun, Fun, Fun
Well she got her daddy’s car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
I’m In Love With My Car
Told my girl I’ll have to forget her
Rather buy me a new carburetor
Add to that Billy Joel’s Keeping the Faith: “Gonna listen to my 45’s.”
You do know that “sheeny” is a disparaging term for a Jew?
There’s a Steve Miller Band song that makes reference to doing something as the singer “get[s] on the 707…”
Given that Boeing 707s have been out of service for nearly two decades everywhere except Iran and one or two places in Africa, it certainly dates the song a bit, IMHO…
I can’t figure out how this is technically/historically obsolete, please explain. 
Technically, no. Historically, it was describing/lamenting a bygone culture when it was written (ca. 1975). Now, it’s twice removed, as even the description of the description seems dated.
It’s a stretch, I’ll admit. 
Any Ice Today, Lady?, a novelty hit of 1926, is all about the days of block ice delivery by horse and wagon (“giddyup Napoleon”).
Ignore the line about “enriched uranium” - it’s a mondegreen for “no ma’am, not in your geraniums.” Ice men were prone to trample clumsily on one’s property, as they carried 50 lb blocks of the cold stuff on large tongs. They were not, however, known to traffic in radioactive materials.
Not technically obsolete, but improbable:
Give me a ticket for an airplane
Ain’t got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I’ma goin’ home
My baby wrote me a letter
Kodachrome (Paul Simon) probably won’t be truly obsolete for some time, but I’d guess fewer and fewer young people will recognize the brand name quickly as time goes by.
I’ve been seeing a commercial lately from the power boating industry, urging viewers to take up the pastime. The background music is a 1960s style rock song that sounds like a telephone conversation, starting out “Hello, hello, how are you”…
I’ve been wondering if this was another one of the “communication” songs which the record company wanted the band to keep pumping out.
Heh. I just asked about ‘pop-tops’.
Blew out my flip-flop
Stepped on a pop-top
Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRJQLzc-bco ?
ETA: Fuck that’s a terrible video! Try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZB-DUCrhVQ&
I’m pretty sure this is actually “Telephone Line” by ELO from 1977, which spoke- spoke of earlier in this thread. The Five Americans followed up “Western Union” with “Sound of Love”, which, based on the lyrics, appears to be pillow talk rather than electronic communication. That in turn was followed by “Zip Code”, which celebrated the benefits of letter writing.
Oh, how about
I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates
You’ve got a brand new key
Many of Billy Bragg’s best songs have references to Soviet Bloc countries and other cold-war era references…
e.g.
“And she’s giving be grief about the DDR”
and
“On the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline” (I saw him play last week and he sung this as the ‘Hugo Chavez’ highway )
Huh, this was weird. Those links popped up in a seperate FoxyTunes player minimized to the side of my screen when I was reading this thread. Never seen that before. How did you do it? Way cool.
“It’s A Long Way To Amphioxus” is obsolete because biologists renamed the creature “lancelet” and the song “references now-disputed notions about the place of cephalochordates in the chordate evolutionary timeline”.