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Lost contexts. My wife and I were listening to a recording of Driving Wheel, and realized that the whole sad context of the song involves a lost technology. The singer is stranded somewhere in TX, has managed to find a phone, and is making a quick call to his/her loved one: a dime bought you three minutes’ connection on a pay phone if I recall rightly. “Can’t say much in a phone call, babe, you know how it is”: a modern listener might wonder why: what’s wrong with your iPhone? Reading & listening to songs, I often notice when the story depends in some way on a social infrastructure that we don’t understand anymore. Probably many people who read this have never used a pay phone.

(note: sorry about the video – the actual song begins at about the 4-minute mark. This is the Cowboy Junkies, a favorite band of mine. It was a minor hit for Tom Rush in 1970).