I found out I can access the local bar's TouchTones from my house and my work. So on random evenings, I'll queue a song list up starting with Photograph (my calling card), then do a list of bizarre songs (Surfin' Bird, it's Not Unusual, a 20+ minute Sufjan Stevens song, Babymetal, etc), then close it out with Photograph again.
I'm going to give the bartender a Pavlovian response to hearing Nickelback
- Photograph
- Prince - Batdance.
- OPM - Heaven is a halfpipe
- NWA - Fuck the Police (radio edit)
- Incubus - Aqueous Transmission
- The Mandalorian Theme song
- Aphex Twin - Bucephalus Boubcing Ball
- Dre - Next Episode
- The Broadside Band -Gathering Peascods
- The Gourds - Gin and Juice
- Steely Dan - Rikki don't lose that number
- Slipknot - before I forget (or slayer raining blood - take your pick)
- Lingus - Snarky Puppy
- Nonpoint - in the air tonight
- Cunninlynguists - the Light
- Rush - la villa strangiato
- Jethro Tull - cross-eyed mary
- Photograph.
All are on Spotify, which you can link to Touch tunes. Load it up as a playlist, then select "smart shuffle".
Find a booth. Grab a pint. Enjoy the clusterfuck.
How often do you do this? Do you ever go into the bar and innocently queue Photograph to see if you get a rise out of anyone?
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Could you do a solid prank for this random internet stranger and queue up the following:
8 x one favorite slightly annoying song ('moves like jagger', or 'we built this city' would be my suggestion)
1 x Photograph (pause for the unison sigh of relief from the patrons)
1+ x the same slightly annoying song played in a row already.
I'll bring popcorn.
So, from experience, I don't think it likes it if you play a song too close to itself. I had a short Playlist once with two or three songs bookended with Photograph, and it dropped the second Photograph. So I'm hesitant to do the same song over and over. Maybe a song that has a whole bunch of different versions might work!
If they have it, Disco Duck is an all-time stupid song classic, highly recommend playing it anytime you want to be a musical troll.
A lad I know was a regular in one of the pubs I used to frequent, which had a jukey that had the CD covers mapped in a 2x2 grid of a catalogue that rotated to show off what was in the box - generally 99 CD's worth, likely a limitation of the input display than any software constraint.
Rather than scroll through the jukey CD's, you could literally ask him a song and he'd give you the two digit CD number, and two digit track number from memory. It was impressive.
Or, you could put two quid in for 12 tracks or whatever, put on two bangers, and the other ten stupidly long November Rain style songs, or Christmas songs in July, by which point you'd have finished your drink and fucked off because the "skip song" control behind the bar had been gubbed for years - leaving your remaining ten songs to go on for hours, or to bring festive cheer to drinkers at half past three on a Monday afternoon in the summer.
Fun times - and very specific to a twenty or thirty year window in time, too.
The world of journalism will truly mourn the loss of Vice's hard-hitting articles such as this
Me too. I tease Vice here, but they did some incredible journalism and their collapse is entirely sad. The state of journalism in 2024 in general is distressing, to severely understate the matter
I’ll miss the only show of theirs I liked - Action Bronson Smokes Weed and watches ancient aliens with friends. It is the best background tv to any sesh besides cops reruns or family guy or whatever
The irony of it makes it kind of funny. So many episodes were filmed in places without legal weed so it’s a contrast to modern day where states legalized and private use wasn’t some sketchy sneaky stuff but just behaving normally lol
But how about 7 plays of “what’s new pussycat” followed by “it’s not unusual.” https://youtu.be/Pl2Jf7xPOLE
Guess who just got back today? Them wild-eyed boys that had been away Haven't changed, had much to say But man, I still think them cats are crazy They were askin' if you were around How you was, where you could be found I told 'em you were livin' downtown Drivin' all the old men crazy
Honestly, considering the genre and the ambition and intent of the song, the lyrics are a notch above the competition at the time. Lynott wrote some really good lyrics at times and while this song is admittedly not the best example of his writing, at least it's got believable characters and setting. I'd rather hear a song about young working class Irish people and their life-affirming ways than what most other hard rock acts were writing about in the 70s and 80s.
Yeah this is better than yet another version of "Let me tell you how hot this teenager is to me, a middle aged rock star"
Songs by Lynott that touch on those themes and other lyrically interesting songs (for others in the thread!):
Black boys on the corner: a song about his experiences being a young black man in Dublin.
Mama nature said: a really early piece of environmentalist music
Got to give it up a really raw piece about drug addiction
What are you about? This isn't supposed to be poetry! I guess I'm biased, having lived in Ireland so long, but still.
Personal preference, I guess.
I'm a big fan of Bruce Springsteen, whose lyrics touch on similar themes but are better 🤷
When I was young, a buddy and I went into a bar we had driven by a bunch of times but never gone into. When we walked in, the redneck-looking guys inside all just stared at us - like very unwelcoming. I went over to the jukebox and put in a few quarters, selected something like "Sweet home Alabama," but then queued up all the very poppy songs that I was surprised to see on the list. Like "Dancing queen" and "Afternoon delight." Then we left.
And once the door closed, the bartender poured a free round and they all danced the evening away to ABBA. You spread a bit of warmth and love in this world, and you used disco to do it.
Goddamn you to hell.
Playing the boys are back in town on a jukebox in a bar over and over again I guess.
My browser ended the article for me just as the author judged a song correctly for the first time
I think you can scroll down further to read on. My browser couldn't load the Spotify widget either and replaced it with a really long break.
That jukebox in the corner blastin' out my favorite song The nights are getting longer, it won't be long Won't be long 'til summer comes Now that the boys are here again
I just have to comment on how I truly hate that song. I can't even express in words why i hate it, but i do, enough to put that out there for you to see.