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We attend to songs lamenting the frustrations of using – or hoping to use – the telephone. We hear, of course, from the Kinks (twice) and Dylan (sort of twice), also Muddy Waters, Eddie Gorman and His Group, Lou Reed, Chuck Berry, Hot Chocolate, Dr Hook, and, at the end, Allan Sherman. And did you know that the first reference to using a telephone occurs in a work by Robert Louis Stevenson?
Thanks for another entertaining evening – just like listening to the radio! – I’m even listening to this in the kitchen to give it that authentic 1950s atmosphere. I liked the rare talk over on ‘Sylivia’s Mother’–and what an enjoyable depressing song that is with the desperation getting more desperate, and the controlled hysteria of ’40 – cents – more’. Great stuff. Also great to hear the fascinating web of rhymes of Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean HSB’–the first and best rap song.