Get Out Those Old Records

Those still lamenting that they missed National Chocolate Chip Cookies Day should regather, and join in celebrating National Vinyl Records Day: August 12.

The obvious song for the day: "Get Out Those Old Records," one of the memorable hits of 1951, as recorded by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.

"Get out those old records,
Those old phonograph records--
The ones we used to play
So long ago."

Vinyl recordings--i.e., LPs, the ones that play at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute--are indeed enjoying a comeback. We're hoping the same will happen for 78s, those 10- and 12-inch discs coated in shellac, which allowed disc jockeys to talk about their "stacks of wax." One 1950s deejay called his program "Spins and Needles," a title, CBC's Katie Malloch said, no one under sixty would understand.

Some of us even remember Edison's cylindrical records. An imaginative radio programmer we knew once discovered an antique gramophone and a collection of cylinders at a garage sale, and launched a show called "Wind Up the Gramophone." It ran once and was cancelled, but was hilarious for the fifteen minutes it lasted.

So in honor of National Vinyl Records Day, we join Guy and Carmen Lombardo, Kenny Gardner and all the Royal Canadians, in urging you to:

"Get out those old records,
Those old phonograph records.
What if they sound scratchy?
The tunes really were catchy--
Especially those that said
I love you so."

They don't write lyrics like that anymore.