Juke Boxes

Kids today have lost the life-lessons taught by the jukebox. Crosley, Wurlitzer, and Rock-ola. All offering the promise of your favorite music. While certainly for entertainment, the jukebox taught me about life.

When I was young, songs were ten cents each, or three for a quarter. Later it became a quarter a song or five for a dollar. At fifty cents a song, I stopped spending my money; the value proposition wasn’t there. I learned about getting more when you bought in larger quantities. How to make sure my quarter or dollar, often from my folks, had to be spent on carefully selected songs. After all, if you only have five songs to pick, split with your sister, you had to be careful which of the 100 to 140 songs you were going to choose. Johnny Horton was usually out, but the Beatles, Beach Boys, Santana, Rolling Stones, Elton John; and if mom and dad weren’t paying too much attention, The Who, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin were all fair game.

Mr. Wurlitzer also taught me about patience and hope. If the place was too busy, you might not even hear the songs you bought with your hard-earned or begged money. First come, first served, and who knows how many songs the guy in the double-denim actually picked. So you wait, trying to remember which songs you chose, and in what order. Once they started playing, we could usually wait until they were all done. But if they hadn’t started by the time we finished the pizza, oh well. Maybe next time. Or maybe I’ll just put my quarters in the pinball machine.

These magical music machines lived in two places, pizza parlors, and diners. The pizza parlor had the big one in the back. If the joint’s owner cared, you’d have some new songs in there. If not, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Patsy Cline, and Johnny Cash were waiting to ruin your meal. Diners were another treat all-together. Your patience was tested as you flipped the song list back and forth at your table. Playing songs from the table was a risky proposition because you had no way of knowing how many people had songs queued up, and there was never anything new. More like playing a slot machine as compared to blackjack. There was also the risk of family discord at the table as you fought with your brother and sister over the song menu. Then you not only wouldn’t get to pick any songs, you couldn’t even touch the jukebox anymore. And rarely was there anything new. Just the classics, crooners, and too much country and western. More often than not, you’d only pick one or two songs, limiting the downside of no songs. But you could still fight over the song lists.

Today, we have fast-food, family restaurants, and cell phones. No more communal entertainment and life lessons. In some bars, you can still find a jukebox, and while it is the same size, your choices are now hundreds or thousands of songs, all digital and a dollar apiece. Worse, it’s shut off on Wednesday and Thursday for the horror that is karaoke. The magic of seeing a carousel of 45’s turn, the arm pick out your record and the needle come to rest as the song, your song, played is gone. Kids no longer learn about budgeting, value propositions, choices, uncertain outcomes, and the exciting win when the stars aligned and Crocodile Rock rang out of the Hi-Fidelity stereo speakers as hot pepperoni pizza was served onto paper plates with a pitcher of Tab to go around.



Copyright © 2019 David Barton