If you ever doubted that the social standards in the world are changing and changing rapidly, just listen carefully to an oldies music station. It will soon occur to you that the lyrics might be incomprehensible to today’s young adults. Phrases like “you’re still living in a paper doll world” or even newer, Sheryl Crow singing “And they drive their shiny Datsuns.”
Does anyone know what paper dolls are, or represent? Why would kids play with paper when there are Barbies? Or Sims?
And what the heck is a Datsun? Isn’t that one of those long, little dogs? How can you drive a shiny dog?
There are too many phrases worn out by the passage of time in old music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Remember, if something was common enough to be part of a hit song, it must have been very broadly known at that time.
There were lots of hits that made it to the local jukebox. But what is a jukebox anyway? Even references to LPs or 45s, even records, are obsolete. So are CDs What can you play those things on?
Then on comes Take a Letter Maria, which sold more than a million copies in 1969. It features a man talking to his secretary (what is a secretary?), lamenting because his wife has been unfaithful. The song ends with the man asking his secretary for a dinner date – stop everything – that’s sexual harassment in the workplace today. Bring on the Me-Too lawsuit, Maria.
Following that song is another from the same era, “Young Girl get out of my mind, my love for you is way out of line” and we are well into pedophilia. Arrest that singer! Check for his name in the Epstein Files.
So many of the oldies are unintelligible because people are “dropping a dime in the phone” or talking the “the operator” which is virtually impossible to do today. Some songs simply have such politically out-of-date or inappropriate language or attitudes they make you cringe. Fred Astaire in the Gay Divorcee, for example.
Listen to the lyrics and they will remind you of the immense social and technological changes we have all been through since rock and roll began 60 years ago. Many of the changes came so subtly that we might not have even noticed. And there have also been huge changes like the internet and the digital age. Imagine telling someone in the 60’s that you listen to Spotify on your phone? They too would have no idea what you were talking about or be able to imagine how you could.
Sure we laugh at people in old movies or TV who constantly smoke, drink whisky at every meeting, or use old computers, and we don’t even blink at the old cars or old fashions. The changes in social attitudes are also there to be seen and cringed at. We can excuse period films, after all they are in black and white – before the invention of colour. (Did people really live in a black and white world?)
The same is true when we look at old commercials or ads. The idea of a doctor smoking or accepting a patient smoking, is totally absurd when judged with todays values. (Did you catch the red MD for doctor?)
Even so, we usually judge the past by the standards of today. Today’s attitudes are also changing and continue to change. Be careful when using language in ads that is unlikely to endure or your advertising may be the butt of jokes quicker than you realize.
Attitudes and behaviours change slower than technology or language. And social changes are always taking place. Many US films and TV shows no longer require Latinos to speak slowly with heavy accents and be stupid background characters; they let the dialogue move forward in Spanish, knowing a huge portion of their viewers speak the language or at least understand the simple phrases being used.
So, a penny for your thoughts…. but hold on, what’s a penny?
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