By The Landlord
Sometimes a topic idea has been right under your nose all along. In fact, perhaps I was even leaning on, or even resting my drink on it. I’ve certainly been putting plenty of money into it, and investing an unfathomable amount of time to help it running smoothly. But most of all, just like all the regulars at this fabulous pub, I’ve slotted huge amounts of love in its direction. I’ve watched, for thousands of hours, the magical process of our jukebox whirring and clicking, the buzz of expectation as it reaches within itself to play the next surprise number, picked from an infinity of ideas, styles, thought patterns, lyrics, connections and sounds. It’s the inner mechanics, as much as the flashing lights, the mental cogs and mechanisms that have brought that music to life. It’s a living, breathing machine. It’s us. We’re it. We make and stack it. It makes us click.
Playlists, in different forms, have been around since the beginning of recorded music and then radio. But to define who first thought of the idea of a series of songs on a theme is a bit like trying to name who invented the wheel, or the omelette. But in terms of an interactive playlist created by the input of a variety of people in a public place, surely the jukebox (see a potted history below), must surely stake a claim as one of the very earliest forms and since then has continued to push buttons for anyone interested in music.
So while lockdown continues in real life, this, dear Song Bar punters, we who make up a hive mind of brilliant nominators, many of whom are also guest guru playlisters, those who take the challenge to slip under the flap and join me behind the pumps, for all of us this place has been an establishment of constant, consummate conviviality and shared joy, banter, music and anecdote, that truly never closes its doors. It is a rare place indeed. It’s very special. We’re old-school in some ways, but ahead of the curve in others. We are the the real Open Arms, needed now more than ever. We have kept this beautiful pub and its jukebox in pristine condition, polished, repaired, and constantly added to it. And now it is the Song Bar’s – and our – fifth birthday. Yes. Five years.
Five years. That adds up to a huge body of work. How did that happen? It’s strange how you can hear lyrics to a song so many times, but then some lines just jump out it at you in a new light:
I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and TVs
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there …
Five years, that's all we've got
We've got five years, what a surprise
We've got five years, stuck on my eyes
We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that's all we've got
Five years …
In many ways the past five years have been some of the most tumultuous in living memory. Arguably things were already on the slide for the previous five, but in 2016 they most certainly turned to shit. From Brexit to Trump, the deaths of Bowie, Prince and many more heroes, there came accelerating signs of climate change and very little done about it, increasing inequality and corruption, the trend towards alternative facts, even more online opinionated stupidity, racial and other abuse, and now Covid-19. Five years. But is this now a turning point?
During the same period my own personal life has gone through a series of seismic struggles, from the heartbreak of losing both parents, to having to deal with shocking employment upheavals and some surprise health problems, readjusting my life but also getting to grips with what is important. In many ways Song Bar was created out of a crisis during a very difficult time, but it brought everything into perspective. It has been something to depend upon. It has been a haven, a source of sanity (and a bit of insanity), of mental agility, creativity, energy, discovery and wonderful surprises.
But five years, eh? Where did that go? So many topics, so many songs. So many people. Among other timely ideas, many which have previously covered, I had considered the topic of the number five. But that’s far too obvious of course, and anyway, that great Bowie song had already, quite rightly, made the list for meta-songs.
But why jukeboxes? Firstly let’s consider where they live. What perhaps we miss most of all during this pandemic is direct human company, the sort that people might experience down the pub. Not just meeting people on purpose but also by chance. But somehow this grand metaphor, this Song Bar, one which I started to use as an editorial virtual landlord before even naming this particular place, functions very much like a pub in real life. Company is both planned and random. If you want to engage, you can. If you want to sit in a corner and quietly consider music on your own, you can.
Cheers regulars
There are regular faces who almost always turn up, have their favourite seat and tipple, a catchphrase, a style, an identity, they role, their place, like characters in Cheers, or like Coronation Street’s Rovers Return. We all know who we are, and who you are. We’re make up strange and wonderful cast. And just like an actual pub, alongside the faces you recognise who appear regularly, many more come and go. There are some who appear for a while, weeks, months, even a year or two, take centre stage occasionally, disappear, perhaps only to the back room, then come back, but then suddenly or gradually move on, or sometimes tragically pass on. But then in a far bigger layer, there’s also a huge cast of punters who are completely in the background, those with non-speaking parts, those who are silent, or talk amongst themselves, but mostly watch and listen to the regulars, and enjoy their starry roles. Passive, but viewing and definitely enjoying, these people now number hundreds of thousands.
Saucy hotpot: Betty and Bet at the Rovers Return
So … songs about jukeboxes. This is pretty straightforward, as it goes, pointing to any songs that makes mention of these machines in lyrics or alternative words, or the act of making selections, as incidental detail, famous brands from Wurlitzer Zodiac or Peacock to Seeburg or Rock-Ola, or inferred referencing to their use, by phrases such as “put a nickel in and play a song for me”. Some songs might also use the jukebox as a source of complaint, about what it is playing or what others have selected.
More on the actual machine shortly, but the jukebox is very much a metaphor too for what we do here at the Song Bar. It’s not just about the music that we might select and then play, it’s what induces us to make that selection and the excitement of the process, the mental connections, the memories that click, the anticipation and flashes of recognition when those lights flicker and that song first comes on. A jukebox, actual metaphorical is stimulus to the brain and balm to the soul.
Inner workings
The jukebox has mostly been a coin operated machine, intended for public use. The first, thought to be Invented in 1890 by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold was a nickel-in-the-slot phonograph, in San Francisco, retrofitting an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph with a new device, Coin Actuated Attachment for Phonograph, with the music was heard via one of four listening tubes. The machines were often place in “listening parlours”, the user turning a crank after slotting the coin that wound the spring motor and placed the stylus in the starting groove. But there was no changeable choice at this point. It just played what was there.
1940s Wurlitzer
Gradually, carousels and other mechanisms for playing multiple records were introduced, and in 1918, Hobart C. Niblack patented an apparatus that automatically changed records, leading to one of the first selective jukeboxes being introduced in 1927 by the Automated Musical Instrument Company, later known as AMI. By then there were Wurlitzer, Seeburgs, and 1930s Rock-Ola machines.
The Seeburg M100C vinyl model
In 1950 the Seeburg Corporation introduced an all-45 rpm vinyl record jukebox becoming the dominant media for the last half of the 20th century for the next 40 years, but then the 33⅓ RPM, CDs, and videos on DVDs were all introduced, after which MP3 downloads, and online connected media players arrived in the 21st century. In some ways we’ve all got our own personal jukeboxes now, whether you’ve got iTunes or an other random or programmable software such as Spotify.
It’s interesting where the word comes from, not really coined until around 1940 in America, pertaining to "juke joint", the vernacular, and not entirely complimentary term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African-Americans in the southeastern US. It comes from derived from the Gullah (African-Americans coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia) word "juke" or "joog", meaning disorderly, rowdy, or wicked, where to use that box you would be a joker (noun) or undulge in juking (verb). Bring it on!
I have friends who are fanatical about jukeboxes. One, Pinball Geoff, so named due to his other collecting obsessions and business, has many vintage models. And I’ve always tried to find them in bars and give them a whirl. When I first started going to pubs aged around 15, I remember also encountering one of the first video jukeboxes at a regular haunt, The Salisbury on Oxford Road in Manchester. I’d meet up with schoolmates there, having first gone into the city centre to browse in bargain vinyl shops, including one called Yanks, and then meeting up for cheap lager or even mild, then around 70p a pint. I remember a particular recurring obsession when several of us had selected Kate Bush’s video for Babooshka, and also at the time how Mel & Kim’s Respectable came on an embarrassing number of times. But, as we used to say, they were well fit.
So then what pushes your buttons, and what buttons are you going to push? It’s almost time, but first here’s some songs that are nothing to do with the topic, but are in some ways could be tributes to our own bar.
Get back into the rhythm of things
And come to the bar …
Be true to your bar,
And don’t let it down,
Or else it may not always be around
Be true to your friends
And let your friends know
Without your bar you'd have no place to go
And finally, let’s have a birthday song. Call it a little white icing. I select this, not only because it’s the Song Bar’s fifth birthday, but also tomorrow, it’s, er … actually mine. Our fates are somehow forever entwined.
You say it's your birthday
It's my birthday too, yeah …
So on that note, I may live to regret this, as my brain hurts like a warehouse, but as it’s my birthday too yeah, the guest playlister who is going to take on this particular topic is going to me, your friendly Song Bar Landlord. Wish me luck, try to quote lyrics where appropriate and justify your selections.
And when you’ve run out of songs, please post anything your like - your favourite moments from the past five years here at Song Bar, from particular discoveries or topics, to friends made, or anything else you want to say.
All of which remains for me to offer huge thanks to all of you here now, or have ever visited this wonderful establishment, for all your contributions in all their many forms, from nominators to guest gurus, and to Marco and his helpers on our engine room of fabulous reference, the invaluable Marconium . You all know who you are, and please consider yourself, respected, cherished and loved.
And even if you’re currently not a regular, and haven’t got time or don’t have any song nominations this week, but would simply like to say hello and wish us all a happy birthday, give us a high five, a high elbow or any other friendly greeting, please do so. There’s a warm fire on, the drinks are on the house, and you are all very welcome. Five more years? Who knows. Let’s hope we can. It’s time to select, and play.
It’s alive …
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