A briefer than usual inter-‘Challenge’ post today (I can hear the sighs of relief from here!) as it needed to be pulled together quickly (and pre-scheduled for posting) before we headed off to seek a few days of warmer climes. ☀😎
Luckily, I heard a great song yesterday (or more accurately the day before we left!) on Steve Lamacq’s ‘6 Music’ show, that I can’t remember ever hearing before, despite it having been released as a single way back in 1983.
Which prompted a thought!
‘Good Technology’ by The Red Guitars (from Hull) has a striking tune, but the part that really caught my ears was the ‘technology doubting’ prescience expressed in a set of lyrics written almost forty years ago.
With lines like, “we’ve got plastics that are indestructible,” and, “… computers that can find us friends,” long predating, yet accurately predicting, many of today’s biggest environmental and social media concerns, the song must surely qualify The Red Guitars (who at the time passed me by) as some sort of new wave Nostradamuses! (or should that be Nostradami?)
Which, in turn, suggested a playlist theme; who else in song (from Joni Mitchell onwards) has placed a sceptical spin on the benefits of technological change? Well, in answer, attached below is half an hour of fine tunes from a right bunch of doubting Thomases!
What I only realised afterwards however is …
… if these Red Guitars really had developed an ability, back in 1983, to foresee the future, and understand where technology might be taking us, then they might (in preparation for the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures below) have chosen to concentrate more of their efforts into a different field.
Anti-ageing cream anybody?!
The Red Guitars of 1983
Fresh from the music store, finely tuned, with nothing in the world to be fretful about!
The (reformed) Red Guitars of 2022
With their paintwork looking a little scuffed, and taking a lot longer to tune up!
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(Remember ‘Challenge 69’ returns next week - beginning the second half of the story - with ‘Track 12’ due to be published at 10am on Saturday 25th February.)