Songs that are dated because of the lyrics

"Back When My Hair Was Short" - Gunhill Road

 

This is one of the worst offenders to me. IMHO.

 

It was teenage rebellion in 1966...now it brings to mind Sinead O'Connor!

 

Anything with pagers or beepers I guess.

 

This might not totally fit this thread, but "I Smoke Two Joints" by Toyes. With the mainstreaming of Marijuana through legalization, etc. this song has lost some of its novelty.

 

"Lets Pretend" - The Northern Pikes

"Let's pretend that everyone is free in East Berlin."

 

Okie From Muskogee"
We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
We don't take no trips on LSD
We don't burn no draft cards down on Main Street;
We like livin' right, and bein' free.

 

Dire Straits: "Money For Nothing"

Microwave ovens and color TVs as big-ticket items, I got no problem with. But a song that's derisive of 'chicks' and 'faggots'? I know it was a different time, but this one is realllly hard to listen to for me, and hell if I'm ever going to sing along. Such a shame, because this album is so well-mastered (both its stereo and 5.1 incarnations) that I almost want to give the lyrics a pass on that basis alone.

Speaking of UHF, I consider "Beverly Hillbillies" to be the definitive version of this song.

 

There's a difference between "dated" and "set in a particular era".

Woodstock, Ohio, Ballad of John and Yoko, Silent Night/Seven O'Clock News are not dated. They are about their time. Similes, metaphors and other references which try to emphasize a point by calling upon things that are no longer understood or relevant, are dated. If you ask me. Which nobody did.

 

I think we can chalk Money For Nothing up as satire. It seems clear to me that Dire Straits and Sting fully understood the political incorrectness of the lyrics, which were intended to send up the state of the music industry in the '80s.

 

Okay...

"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
'We would meet again'
Some sunny day?
Vera! Vera! What has becomes of you?"

~ Pink Floyd - Vera

 

The song isn't derisive of "chicks" and "faggots," it's derisive of appliance delivery guys who call people "chicks" and "faggots."

The most offensive thing about it is that it's a wealthy rock star mocking the stupidity of blue collar workers who would mock a wealthy rock star. Very meta, and all around very unnecessary.

 

Bossa Nova Baby- "If you lend me a dollar, I can buy some gas
And we can go for a little ride"

 

O' give me your filth and grime and base barbarities, so that I may tack it on to the last of humanity's gag reel.

For life is too short to be offended by much, as life is too long to be much offended.

 

Tex Ritter:


The song is here:

 

Since been updated to 'beatc*es' 'ho's' and 'f**king'. And even those seem to be on the cusp of dated now.

 

Over There by George M. Cohen

 

Obvious choice from the only band that matters "No Elvis,Beatles or the Rolling Stones....in 1977 (1978,79,80,81,82,83,& 84)
Killing Joke "I'm living in the EIGHTIES, I Struggle"
John Fogerty "As four guys from England,took us all by the hand" (I Saw it on TV-Centerfield-1985)
White Stripes "It was a ray gun,and it was 1981" (The Hardest Button to Button-Elephant-2003)

 

"I got a '34 wagon and we call it a woody..."

 

XTC-"If we get through this one,we're due for replay,1998" and ,"It's 1961 again,and we are piggy in the middle" (Living through Another Cuba)

Blue Oyster Cult-This Ain't the Summer of Love

The Police-Born in the 50's "My mother cried,when President Kennedy died"

Another obvious one-"This ain't no party,this ain't no disco" This ain't no Mudclub,or CBGB"

 

MIA wins...
"Check my coat in and I paid the dollar,
Sidekick rings, "what's up? holla!"
Text the address, I'll see you later"

Apparently Sidekick was a cellphone that was popular for about a year before the iPhone obliterated it.

 

speaking of a particular time is not dated it's referential: as xtc for the cuba crisis or the 50's for police!
i don't understand this thread

 

Hmm, interesting. I had always assumed the song was a bit of self-mockery, looking at rock stars from the perspective of the "working man." I didn't consider that it was actually a send-up of the working man (or at least some particular workers that Knopfler apparently overheard saying some of these things verbatim).

Very meta indeed. So meta that it almost becomes the very thing that it mocks.

I guess I feel better about the song now (less sexism and homophobia, more classism!), but I'm still not gonna sing along to it anytime soon...

 

He used to rib on it during later performances