By The Landlord
Coin in slot.
Slow –
slow, drop.
Plop. Coiled,
tiny spring,
it’s a –
well, a secret
world
of inner
Wurlitzer
sing-song
sprung
ker-ching.
Buttons click,
whir, hum.
Something dancey?
Something fun?
Is it working?
Something’s happening.
Yes it’s moving, just, but –
When’s the needling?
When’s the grooving?
When’s collection
and extraction?
Selection cycle
cranks to action.
So, is A1 – done?
Buzz, donk,
ping, slap.
Yes, at last, the next
is in the trap.
Will they think
mine’s cool?
Or crap?
Ah! Can I kick it?
No I can’t.
Which next will it tackle?
Brief pause.
Then a crackle …
Here we go then. Perhaps what’s key to a jukebox is not only the music it plays, but most especially the anticipation of what song is coming next. Whose choice will come up? If not now, then when? But whatever you do, the jukebox will get there in its own sweet time. It will not be hurried. It will serve, but only when it chooses, and in an order of its own mystery logic, most likely depending on the location of your record in its own mechanical mind palace.
But first, one key part of the jukebox process is the person actually making those choices in the first place. Flippin’ ‘eck, literally. What should I choose that says something about me? What admirably great taste can I reveal? How appropriate, discerning and clever can it be, something to reflect on the evening, the scene of the bar, myself, or anyone else is in, capturing the vibe, the atmosphere? Something to get people dancing, or change the mood? Something that complements both beer, and pool and food? Because of what’s inside the great machine, that level of choice can be limiting, or more often perhaps far too much. A bit like making a Song Bar playlist.
So to start off, let’s capture the initial decision-making process with the great film and TV composer John Barry’s Hit And Miss, the theme from Jukebox Jury, where just like that long-running instant-decision pop critic TV and radio programme, guests at least might mull over each new hit with a discerning air, and at the the same time attempt to say: “Yeah, I know my stuff, and this is what I think, and hopefully others will agree.” So where next?
The jukebox takes its name from juke joints, that as Muddy Waters put it, with thanks to Nicko for the quote: “We had these little juke joints, little taverns at that time. On a weekend there was this little place in the alley that would stay open all night. We called them Saturday night fish fries, they had two or three names, they called ‘em juke houses or suppers.” The vernacular word came from the southeastern US in the 1940s. It comes from the Gullah (African-Americans on coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia) word "juke" or "joog", meaning disorderly, rowdy, or wicked, but these dusty shacks were just as much a place to hang out, drink and listen to music.
So to capture that intimate atmosphere of the early juke joint, let’s inhale this smoky obscure early blues number by Boy Green with Play My Juke Box, who refers to the machine, which must have been a real innovation in all bars at the time. Yet the lyrics certainly suggest some double-entendre meanings. Oh boy, oh Boy:
Gonna play with my jukebox
Because she plays just right …
My jukebox plays nice and hot
I don't know what my jukebox got.
Let’s reach for some coins and start with a real vintage box, a Nickelodeon, which could be a jukebox, or indeed a mechanical musical instrument such as a coin-operated player piano or orchestrion. But could there be a more upbeat and excited way to start than with innocently joyful deliver of Teresa Brewer with the Dixieland All Stars and (Put Another Nickel In) Music, Music, Music
In a rather different place, at a later time, let us know transport ourselves to a Nashville establishment where clearly a sweet young Tammy Wynette is also seduced by the idea of the bar, and what’s inside the box, with, like Boy Green more than music on her mind, in Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad:
I've never seen the inside of a bar room
Or listened to a jukebox all night long
But I see these are the things that bring you pleasure
So I'm gonna make some changes in our home
I've heard it said if you can't beat 'em join 'em
So if that's the way you've wanted me to be
I'll change if it takes that to make you happy
From now on you're gonna see a different me
Because your good girl's gonna go bad
I'm gonna be the swingin'est swinger you've ever had
If you like 'em painted up powdered up then you ought to be glad
‘Cause your good girl's gonna go bad
Jukeboxes are clearly popular with country music scene, and here’s another star who like to drop a coin or two. It’s June Carter with Jukebox Blues
I walked into a honky tonky just the other day
I dropped a nickel in the juke box just to hear it play
I didn’t have no tune in mind, I didn't wait to choose
Just dropped a nickel in the slot and I played the juke box blues
Others also like to jump the country bandwagon, but sometimes you don’t want to hear certain songs. Here’s Aussie Olivia Newton-John in one of her finest singing performances, Please Mr Please, with a sad association to a particular programmed number:
In the corner of the bar there stands a jukebox
With the best of country music, old and new
You can hear your five selections for a quarter
And somebody else's songs when yours are through
I got good Kentucky whiskey on the counter
And my friends around to help me ease the pain
Til some button-pushing cowboy plays that love song
And here I am, just missing you again
Please, mister, please, don't play B-17
It was our song, it was his song but it's over
Please, mister, please, if you know what I mean
I don't ever wanna hear that song again
Perhaps nobody captures that sad song refrain with a finer voice, and such tragedy and pathos than Roy Orbison with Here Comes That Song Again:
Here comes that song again
The jukebox must have found a friend
My heart will never mend
They're playing it again
Connie Francis is a popular choice this week, with at least two songs cropping up, but Drop It Joe fits perfectly as we picture another woman who falls in love with the jukebox machine, rather than a man:
Joe fell in love with a canvas queen
He dreamed of her night and day
She had a crush on a record machine
And when he tried to kiss her she'd say.
Drop it Joe (drop a dime in the jukebox Joe)
Drop it Joe(drop a dime in the jukebox Joe)
Come on and play this tune for me so I can twist all night.
So far everyone has been hearing the jukebox and paying it attention, sometimes when they prefer not to, but in other bars, the jukebox is left without a friend. The brilliant lyricist David Berman (rest in peace) of Silver Jews wrote of such a thing in Suffering Jukebox:
Suffering jukebox, such a sad machine
You're filled up with what other people need
And they never seem to turn you up loud
There are a lot of chatterboxes in this crowd
Suffering jukebox in a happy town
You're over in the corner breaking down
They always seem to keep you way down low
The people in this town don't want to know
1952 Seeburg Selec-O-Matic
It can bring joy and sadness, stir up old emotions or stimulate new ones, but the jukebox is also designed to entertain, to get people dancing, so it’s time to slot in a few coins and get things moving, bringing in some musical heavyweights. The 1950s were probably when the box was at its most exciting in the beginnings of pop culture and it’s no surprise that certain pioneers of piano, voice and guitar paid homage to those Wurlitzers, Rock-Olas and other models. Let’s transport ourselves to a southern milk bar, where The Killer himself, Jerry Lee Lewis captures that after-school excitement in several numbers, and most particularly High school Confidential where he warns: “Honey get your boppin; shoes before the jukebox blows a fuse”. You can feel the pulsating energy in every bash his rhythmic piano hands and voice.
Now we are rollin’! There’s clearly a lot of shaking going on, as you can really hear those jukeboxes jumpin’ with Little Richard’s All Around The World, and then someone’s really unsettling the establishment with Roll Over Beethoven. Who else but Chuck Berry of course. The musical revolution is here:
You know my temperature's risin'
The jukebox's blowin' a fuse
My heart beatin' rhythm
And my soul keep-a singing the blues
Roll over Beethoven
And tell Tchaikovsky the news
The energy coming off that box is so hot that it’s carried forward for decades and decades, channelled with panache in the 1980s by Stray Cats and Rock This Town. Brian Setzer is carrying the Chuck Berry flame. But in this number, the Cats don’t always hear what they want to:
Well, we found a little place that really didn't look half-bad
I had a whisky on the rocks and changed half a dollar for the jukebox
Well, I put a quarter right into that can
But all they played was disco, man
Come on, baby, baby, let's get out of here right away
But what’s wrong with a bit of disco and funk, guys? The jukebox is all about for dancing when the mood takes you, so let’s get down to a joint in Indiana in 1976, where The Jackson 5 are giving us Joyful Jukebox Music:
Give me a quarter for that jukebox
So I can play my favourite song
Give me a touch of the past so we can bop so fast
And everybody sing along
Everybody can sing along indeed, where the jukebox is now everywhere. It’s even in a tin Love Shack down Atlanta Highway near Athens, Georgia, where who else but The B-52's tell you to bring your jukebox money!
Van Halen’s jumping on the bandwagon too. The original rock number got pulled into songs with great riffs, but that’s no excuse not to pay tribute to Eddie, with this alternative bluegrass version featuring David Lee Roth & J. Jorgenson Bluegrass Band ’s version of Jump. Yee-har by “the record machine”! Check out that banjo playing.
But meanwhile, in another place far away from the mountains of Kentucky, punk is forming. Punks don’t like what’s on the jukebox and are probably smashing it up. But not all of them, and out of this comes angry but discerning sound of The Jam and Pretty Green:
I've got a pocket full of pretty green
I'm going to put it in the fruit machine
I'm going to put it in the jukebox
It's going to play all the records in the hit parade
Moving away from the Paul Weller’s home venue, the Woking YMCA Centre, it’s time to head up to Manchester, where, in Band On the Wall, The Fall describe a jukebox that, like Mark E Smith, has a crazy mind all of its own. It’s a Rebellious Jukebox:
No sounds at first came out
This machine had dropped out
But it made music to itself
Made music for itself
Rebellious Jukebox yeah
Rebellious Jukebox now
Manchester is full of Irish immigrants, and few pubs are without an Irish connection. So as pubs house jukeboxes, we must also programme in an Irish number. The Pogues have several songs which reference the jukebox. In one of their finest, Shane, as usual, finds himself paralytic to the soundtrack of one of these very machines, encountering A Pair of Brown Eyes:
One summer evening drunk to hell
I stood there nearly lifeless
An old man in the corner sang
Where the water lilies grow
And on the jukebox johnny sang
About a thing called love
And its how are you kid and whats your name
And how would you bloody know?
So as the evening now begins to wind down, we end with two different takes. First, here’s Ani DiFranco with a metaphorical Jukebox.
In the jukebox of her memory
The list of names flips by and stops
She closes her eyes
And smiles as the record drops
And finally, with a sense of the night falling, a rather otherworldly, strange, but beautiful song, Jukebox Sparrows, by Shannon McNally:
And I could just sit here all night,
Hit those magic arrows
And hear the glasses chink and chink
For those jukebox sparrows.
Hey man, you got a dollar for me?
I want to put it in the jukebox
And make it sing.
The Fully Autonomous A-List Playlist:
John Barry Seven - Hit And Miss (Jukebox Jury theme)
Boy Green - Play My Juke Box
Teresa Brewer with the Dixieland All Stars- (Put Another Nickel In) Music, Music, Music
Tammy Wynette - Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad
June Carter - Jukebox Blues
Olivia Newton-John - Please Mr Please
Roy Orbison - Here Comes That Song Again
Connie Francis - Drop It Joe
Silver Jews - Suffering Jukebox
Jerry Lee Lewis - High school Confidential
Little Richard - All Around The World
Chuck Berry - Roll Over Beethoven
Stray Cats - Rock This Town
Jackson 5 - Joyful Jukebox Music
The B-52’s - Love Shack
David Lee Roth & J. Jorgenson Bluegrass Band – Jump
The Jam - Pretty Green
The Fall - Rebellious Jukebox
The Pogues - A Pair of Brown Eyes
Ani DiFranco - Jukebox
Shannon McNally - Jukebox Sparrows
The Big Button-Pressing B-List Playlist:
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - I Love Rock’n’Roll
Suzi Quatro - Devil Gate Drive
Tina Tuner - Root Toot Undisputable Rock´n´roller
Barry Blue - Dancin’ (On A Saturday Night)
Dave Edmunds - A1 On The Jukebox
The Rubettes - Juke Box Jive
Adam & The Ants - Antmusic
Alan Vega - Jukebox Babe
Jackie Leven - Classical Northern Divisions
The Pogues - Sally MacLennane
Saint Etienne - Haunted Jukebox
Pete & The Pirates - Come To The Bar
Rickie Lee Jones - Danny’s All Star Joint
Fred Buscaglione - Juke Box
Serge Gainsbourg - Le Claqueur de Doigts
Dorothy Dandridge - Zoot Suit Soundie
Glenn Miller Band - Juke Box Saturday Night
Chuck Berry - School Days
Gene Pitney - If I Didn’t Have a Dime
Emmylou Harris - Amarillo
Buck Owens - A-11
James Taylor - Hey Mister, That’s Me On The Jukebox
Ella Fitzgerald - I Gotta Have My Baby Back (feat. The Mills Brothers)
Jason Molina - Divison St. Girl
Ellis Paul - Jukebox On My Grave
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Southern Jukebox Music
A final word:
Many thanks again to everyone who took part for this topic. Big lists this week, so I hope many different readers got picked. But as ever, it’s the taking part that matters. And thanks to everyone who has ever contributed in any way to the Song Bar over the past five years. Here’s to the music, the convivial chat and banter, the many subjects and connections that happen all continuing to press buttons for many years to come.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations from last week's topic: Make your Song Bar Fifth Birthday selections! Songs about jukeboxes. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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