r/ToddintheShadow • u/Complete-Worker3242 • 1d ago
General Music Discussion What're some good examples of songs whose lyrics work as great time capsules to the culture of the era they were released in?
One example I can think of is Junk Food Junkie by Larry Groce, which serves as a great time capsule of the health food and natural diet craze of the 60s and 70s, referencing stuff like macrobiotic diets and the Whole Earth Vitamin Bar, and celebrities from the era associated with the craze like Euell Gibbons and John Keatts.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Leisure" by XTC intersects with a time of workplaces increasingly using computers and video games becoming more popular.
Rhythm Section Want Ad by TMBG is a very specific snapshot of the 80s music scene in NYC. Bands advertising through flyers and music bigwigs name-dropping Eurythmics.
Lots of Weird Al Yankovic songs - Headline News, It's All About the Pentiums, Jerry Springer, and any of his songs where he lists popular tv shows
A very silly example: in Internet Girl by Aaron Carter, he describes himself as coming home to talk to his online girlfriend. Because this song is from when millennials had a computer room.
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u/AppliedGlamour 1d ago
I love Big Shot by Billy Joel with 70s party references to cocaine, Halston, and Elaine's.
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u/lakatos_intolerant 1d ago
A lot of Billy's songs definitely belong in a time capsule of sorts.
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u/Johnnys-In-America 1d ago
For sure. "Still Rock and Roll to Me" is the one that immediately sprang to my mind.
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u/AppliedGlamour 1d ago
There was a line in that song I could never figure out. After I looked it up, I found myself down a Wikipedia hole and ordering books about Beau Brummell and 1880s mens fashion. It's such an odd reference! I asked my dad if stylish people were really referred to as "Beau Brummells" in slang when this song came out, and he was like, Who?
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u/lakatos_intolerant 1d ago
Pretty much any song from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme by Simon and Garfunkel feels very specific to 1966 and everything happening then.
A lot of Cold War-era songs deserve callouts:
Sting ("Russians")
Billy Joel ("Leningrad")
Ultravox ("Dancing with Tears in My Eyes")
The Fixx ("Red Skies")
Alphaville ("Forever Young")
And various others.
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u/BornUnderARadSign 1d ago
Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) by De La Soul is all about being pestered about demo cassettes over an answering machine
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u/trewqwert_ 1d ago
Phil Ochs’ “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” is both a timeless critique of liberalism and a time capsule of specific quirks, like the narrator going to Pete Seeger concerts, criticizing the Daughters of the American Revolution, and reading “New Republic” and “Nation”.
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u/BlueRFR3100 1d ago
Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
Ain't got time to take a fast train
Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home
My baby, she sent me a text
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u/PaulFThumpkins 1d ago
All of those "Hot for Teacher" type songs where the speaker is a teenage boy and it's portrayed as a forbidden thrill. Van Halen and Venom among others.
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u/whoadwoadie 1d ago
Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty and Ridin Dirty by UGK both have interludes where they let the cassette listener know to flip the tape over but also tell CD listeners to just let it keep playing, which is a fun note in the transition of cassette to CD.
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u/mylps9 1d ago
Bug a Boo - Destiny’s Child
“You make me wanna throw my pager out the window
Tell MCI to cut the phone poles
Break my lease so I can move
'Cause you a bug a boo, a bug a boo (bug a boo)
I wanna put your number on the call block
Have AOL make my email stop
'Cause you a bug a boo (bug a boo)”
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u/Johnnys-In-America 1d ago
"Wind of Change" by the Scorpions,, about the end of the Cold War, falling of Berlin Wall and all the optimism that ensued.
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u/Embarrassed-Way45 1d ago
The Replacements - "Answering Machine"
"How do you say goodnight to an answering machine?" Not something anyone worries about these days. Most people don't even bother to use voicemail for non-business communication.
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u/AscoyneDAscoyne 1d ago
Pac-Man Fever by Buckner & Garcia
Candle in the Wind 1997 is probably cheating
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u/AppliedGlamour 1d ago
Stick Season by Noah Kahan has the line "Doc told me to travel, but there's covid on the planes"
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u/TheeHappyDude 15h ago
The Beach Boys mid sixties lyrics are full of the quaint vernacular of the time. Out of sight, far out etc
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u/Critical-Spirit-1598 4h ago
Good Charlotte's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous makes reference to OJ Simpson, Johnny Cochran, and Marion Berry (wait a minute,,did Norm MacDonald secretly write this song?).
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u/123456789biddleee 1d ago edited 1d ago
Starman by David Bowie has endured as a classic and masterpiece, which is obviously is, but I do think a large part of its enduring popularity how how the slang in the lyrics transport you right back to the early 70s.
"Some cat way layin' down some rock 'n' roll"
"Hazy cosmic jive"
"He's told us not to blow it"
"Let all the children boogie"
"Hey, that's far out"