'Obsolete' songs?

[capt.ron]

I don't think "I Can't Drive 55" is obsolete even with the NMSL gone. Come drive on the Beltway outside rush hour and you'll see nobody keeps it to 55 despite that being the speed limit on most of the road (the exception being the HO/T lanes, which are posted at 65).

Song is definitely relevant today, especially on 2 lane roads from just west of the Miss. River east to the east coast. Like US 64 in Arkansas for example... Bald Knob to Marion. The rural parts NEED to be 65 or even 70. If Texas can put 70 mph on their rural 2 laners, so can everybody else (within reason)!!
Kinda funny that Sammy Hagar raised it to 65.

[OracleUsr]

Been on two two-lane 65mph highways in my life, both in Oklahoma (OK 9 from OK 102 to Norman and OK 50 from I-44 to Stillwater), I thought THAT was radical, now I hear Texas has 70MPH on 2 lane roads?

[ethanhopkin14]

Been on two two-lane 65mph highways in my life, both in Oklahoma (OK 9 from OK 102 to Norman and OK 50 from I-44 to Stillwater), I thought THAT was radical, now I hear Texas has 70MPH on 2 lane roads?

75 mph.  State Highway 54 from Van Horn to Guadelupe Mountains National Park.  Two lane the whole way.  So is US 180 & 62 from Guadelupe Mountains National Park west to El Paso.  There are other examples out there, but those are the first that come to mind.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7970261,-104.8519775,3a,75y,263.57h,92.13t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKEw_JvHX8PkuKc-7VE-g3Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

bad shot because you see the turning lane for SH 54, but if you keep going west it dies and you have a two lane road.

[Max Rockatansky]

Been on two two-lane 65mph highways in my life, both in Oklahoma (OK 9 from OK 102 to Norman and OK 50 from I-44 to Stillwater), I thought THAT was radical, now I hear Texas has 70MPH on 2 lane roads?

75 mph.  State Highway 54 from Van Horn to Guadelupe Mountains National Park.  Two lane the whole way.  So is US 180 & 62 from Guadelupe Mountains National Park west to El Paso.  There are other examples out there, but those are the first that come to mind.

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7970261,-104.8519775,3a,75y,263.57h,92.13t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKEw_JvHX8PkuKc-7VE-g3Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

bad shot because you see the turning lane for SH 54, but if you keep going west it dies and you have a two lane road.

A good stretch of US 90 east of Vanhorn is 75 MPH also.  Montana is chock full of 70 MPH 2-lane roads....hell even US 212 IS or a good portion of the Beartooth Highway. 

[bing101]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP2VyJWkWpE

Al Yankovic's Phony Calls/waterfalls is outdated though given that not many people do prank calls for fun anymore.

Mainly spam calls are coming from superpacs and telemarketers these days.

[jp the roadgeek]

How about newer songs that say "cell phone"? To me that's sort of obsolete cause we just call them phones now. A good example is in "Hotline Bling" by Drake, it says " you used to call me on my cell phone".

Still not as old as this one:

A couple others: 2 songs called Operator; one by Jim Croce, and the other by The Grateful Dead. Another is Memphis, Tennessee by Johnny Rivers.  In all 3, the song is being sung by a caller trying to place a long distance call with an operator. 

[Big John]

Add Sylvia's Mother by Dr. Hook, where he is calling her from a pay phone and the operator is asking for more money to continue the call.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPrixYOTNHw

[1995hoo]

That Roger McGuinn album is a great album.

[bing101]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRaWnd3LJfs

Maroon 5's Payphone that song is outdated given that not many payphones exist as of 2019.

[Revive 755]

Perhaps most amusingly though, is the fact that the singer's assertion that he has "100 gigabytes of RAM" remains nearly as absurd today as it was 17 years ago.

Not as absurd as you might think: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2923033/ram-for-the-rich-and-nerdy-128gb-ddr4-memory-kits-become-reality.html
Though it only works on Xeon processors, so not really for the high-end consumer market, I guess.

It doesn't look too hard to get near or over 100 GB of RAM - depending on the amount of money being spent.  I'm seeing 16 GB sticks of  available, and recall motherboards that could support up to six sticks for a total of 96 GB.  A search on Google is finding motherboards that could accommodate 8 sticks of RAM for a total of 128 GB.

[mgk920]

Add Sylvia's Mother by Dr. Hook, where he is calling her from a pay phone and the operator is asking for more money to continue the call.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPrixYOTNHw

That was the song that I was focusing on in my OP in this thread.  And at a rate of $0.40/three minutes in 1972 money - likely at least $3.00-4.00/three minutes in 2019 money!   

Mike

[roadman]

Arlo Guthrie's song Telephone, from his Outlasting the Blues album, was a satirical piece about a man who needed to have a phone everywhere.  Although nobody knew it at the time, Arlo actually predicted what telephone communication - and people's attitudes towards phones - would become in current-day society.

[hbelkins]

"Winds of Change" by the Scorpions.

"Dialogue" by Chicago. Also "A Song For Richard and His Friends," which they continued to perform after Nixon resigned.

"Test For Echo" by Rush (makes reference to the O.J. Simpson trial)

Saw this thread had been revived, and I wondered if I had posted to it.

It's timely, because Chicago (or that oldies act that calls itself Chicago these days) is playing at Eastern Kentucky University this weekend. They're doing the entire "Chicago II" album, on which most of Side 4 was taken up by an anti-Vietnam War song in four movements called "It Better End Soon." Only the diehard longtime Chicago fans will understand what that song's about.

[KeithE4Phx]

"Winds of Change" by the Scorpions.

"Dialogue" by Chicago. Also "A Song For Richard and His Friends," which they continued to perform after Nixon resigned.

"Test For Echo" by Rush (makes reference to the O.J. Simpson trial)

Saw this thread had been revived, and I wondered if I had posted to it.

It's timely, because Chicago (or that oldies act that calls itself Chicago these days) is playing at Eastern Kentucky University this weekend. They're doing the entire "Chicago II" album, on which most of Side 4 was taken up by an anti-Vietnam War song in four movements called "It Better End Soon." Only the diehard longtime Chicago fans will understand what that song's about.

They'd also recorded a "two-track" song (two separate cuts, but always combined when played on the radio) called Prolog/Someday (August 29, 1968) as the first two tracks of Side 4 of their first album, "Chicago Transit Authority."  The "The whole world's watching" chant was from actual audio from the riots outside the Democratic Convention in Chicago on that date.  If you weren't around then, you probably won't get it unless you're a student of 1960s politics and history.  Yes, I'm old enough to remember it quite well. 

BTW, that "oldies act" still has 4 of their original 7 members:  Keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Robert Lamm, trombonist/songwriter Jimmy Pankow, trumpeter/vocalist Lee Loughnane, and woodwind player Walter Parazaider.

[roadman65]

Leningrad by Billy Joel from his 1988 Storm Front LP.  Now Leningrad is called St. Petersburg as it originally was many decades prior thanks to Vladimir Lenin who died in 1924.

[kevinb1994]

Leningrad by Billy Joel from his 1988 Storm Front LP.  Now Leningrad is called St. Petersburg as it originally was many decades prior thanks to Vladimir Lenin who died in 1924.

And yes it lent its name to the one here in Florida in Pinellas County.

[hbelkins]

BTW, that "oldies act" still has 4 of their original 7 members:  Keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Robert Lamm, trombonist/songwriter Jimmy Pankow, trumpeter/vocalist Lee Loughnane, and woodwind player Walter Parazaider.

Parazaider is semi-retired. He's not touring anymore due to health issues. Ray Herrmann has been with the band for several years now. Parazaider will probably still play on any new albums the group might record, and is still technically in the band, but not as a touring member.

[plain]

J. Blackfoot's 1983 song "Taxi" is very close to being obsolete (already there in many places) because of Uber & Lyft.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

As a Yes fan I never got the "no original members"  whining. Obviously it sucks that Chris is gone and Jon doesn't get along with the rest of the group, but...

Steve Howe was not original; he joined in 1971, and without him this discussion wouldn't be happening because the band wasn't going anywhere with original guitarist Peter Banks. Drummer Alan White joined in 1972 and has been there since. Do they count for nothing?

[KeithE4Phx]

BTW, that "oldies act" still has 4 of their original 7 members:  Keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Robert Lamm, trombonist/songwriter Jimmy Pankow, trumpeter/vocalist Lee Loughnane, and woodwind player Walter Parazaider.

Parazaider is semi-retired. He's not touring anymore due to health issues. Ray Herrmann has been with the band for several years now. Parazaider will probably still play on any new albums the group might record, and is still technically in the band, but not as a touring member.

That I did not know.  Hopefully he regains his health soon.

[kevinb1994]

BTW, that "oldies act" still has 4 of their original 7 members:  Keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Robert Lamm, trombonist/songwriter Jimmy Pankow, trumpeter/vocalist Lee Loughnane, and woodwind player Walter Parazaider.

Parazaider is semi-retired. He's not touring anymore due to health issues. Ray Herrmann has been with the band for several years now. Parazaider will probably still play on any new albums the group might record, and is still technically in the band, but not as a touring member.

That I did not know.  Hopefully he regains his health soon.

He's probably not due to having taking breaks from the band's touring schedule more than once and is the band member with the most health issues.

[hbelkins]

BTW, that "oldies act" still has 4 of their original 7 members:  Keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Robert Lamm, trombonist/songwriter Jimmy Pankow, trumpeter/vocalist Lee Loughnane, and woodwind player Walter Parazaider.

Parazaider is semi-retired. He's not touring anymore due to health issues. Ray Herrmann has been with the band for several years now. Parazaider will probably still play on any new albums the group might record, and is still technically in the band, but not as a touring member.

That I did not know.  Hopefully he regains his health soon.

He's probably not due to having taking breaks from the band's touring schedule more than once and is the band member with the most health issues.

Heart issues, is what I understand.

[kevinb1994]

BTW, that "oldies act" still has 4 of their original 7 members:  Keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Robert Lamm, trombonist/songwriter Jimmy Pankow, trumpeter/vocalist Lee Loughnane, and woodwind player Walter Parazaider.

Parazaider is semi-retired. He's not touring anymore due to health issues. Ray Herrmann has been with the band for several years now. Parazaider will probably still play on any new albums the group might record, and is still technically in the band, but not as a touring member.

That I did not know.  Hopefully he regains his health soon.

He's probably not due to having taking breaks from the band's touring schedule more than once and is the band member with the most health issues.

Heart issues, is what I understand.

Yeah I read about that.

[inkyatari]

Superbowl Shuffle.

[kevinb1994]

Superbowl Shuffle.

Chances are that that may be brought back someday, but who knows.