Listing / Listening, Part 1

Graphic from the Official Lyrics Video
for "Reasons To Be Cheerful"
by Ian Dury and The Blockheads

[See also, Part 2]

What better way to spend the summer than listening / listing
to these nostalgic favs & learning every reference:

You're the Top

Do You Remember These?

Reasons to be Cheerful

You can find lyrics and more on my recent post

Cultural List - eracy,
Part 1: Make Your Own List

[Also, Part 2: From Prime Time to Internet]

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

P.S.
Cellophane, gutta percha, isinglass --
life - changing new products,
so cool and trendy for their time!

Cellophane
"It was considered such a useful invention that
cellophane was listed alongside other modern marvels"
in You're the Top by Cole Porter (1934).

Gutta percha
The latest fashion in overshoes,
desirable in Ireland because they were all the rage in Paris,
as explained by James Joyce in "The Dead" (1907).

"Goloshes! . . . That's the latest. . . .

And what are goloshes, Gabriel?

Goloshes, Julia! exclaimed her sister. Goodness me, don't you know what goloshes are? You wear them over your... over your boots, Gretta, isn't it?

Yes, said Mrs Conroy. Gutta percha things. We both have a pair now. Gabriel says everyone wears them on the Continent."

O, on the Continent, murmured Aunt Julia, nodding her head slowly." [emphasis added]

[And, as Gerry learned from his endodontist,
gutta percha is used today for creating dental implants!]

Isinglass
Surprisingly present in literature and popular culture!
It is mentioned in the opening paragraph
of Willa Cather's novel Song of Lark (1915):
"The isinglass sides of the hard-coal burner were aglow . . . "

and in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! (1943):
"The Surrey With The Fringe On Top" has
"Isinglass curtains you can roll right down
In case there’s a change in the weather."