For the sake of the innovators in the crowd at Thursday night’s GeekWire Awards, let’s hope their products and services don’t end up in a future Robert McPherson musical number.
McPherson, affectionately known as “The Drunken Tenor,” returned to the GeekWire stage for another rousing song to open the big show this year, this time taking on the gadgets and geeky must-haves of a bygone era.
Playing off the night’s theme of “Land Before Tech,” McPherson belted out a laundry list of items that have mostly been relegated to the tech recycling bin, from VHS and Betamax tapes to dial-up internet, Palm Pilots, BlackBerries, 8-tracks, dot matrix printers, Friendster, Ask Jeeves, and so much more.
As each device or service appeared flaming in the video playing behind him, McPherson sang his burning lyrics to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” before adding the chorus:
We threw it in a fire. Tech that once was so hot but now is so not.
We threw it in a fire. Tech that once had its day but now it’s passé
“I’ve watched so many things come and go in my lifetime,” McPherson told GeekWire at the Awards. “And while I may not be up to the minute, I think Gen X, we’ve always been adaptable.”
Based on audience reaction from the sold-out crowd at Showbox SoDo, McPherson had a hot hit on his hands. People laughed or cheered each time a device appeared on screen that they remembered using or loving — touchstones from a less screen-addicted time.
A Grammy winner who created and stars in Seattle Opera’s “A Very Drunken Christmas Carol,” McPherson sang at last year’s event about tech that’s a bit more current. As the human embodiment of ChatGPT, his 2023 song was a lyrical romp through the rise of generative AI and the tech industry’s hottest topic.
But he had to spend a lot of educating himself on what AI and ChatGPT were all about. This year, McPherson said he started by Googling obsolete tech, making lists and categorizing items that rhymed.
“This one was in my wheelhouse,” he said. “It was fascinating because I wrote this parody in three days. This was one of the quickest writes I’ve ever done. I just I knew as soon as I started thinking about it, it had to be Billy Joel.”
Here are the complete lyrics to McPherson’s song:
Boom Boxes playing tracks, camcorders, send a fax.
I can use a stylus on my Palm pilot screen.
Polaroids, DVDs, caught with Napster’s MP3s
Please leave a message on my answering machine.Got my Walkman and a pager, spelling boobs on calculators.
Sony Discman plays my music CDs.
Using Floppy diskettes, making mix tapes on a cassette.
Watching all my shows on a rabbit ear TV.We threw it in a fire. Tech that once was so hot but now is so not.
We threw it in a fire. Tech that once had its day but now it’s passé.Furby would talk with me, tennis on Nintendo Wii
Galaxy Note 7s exploding into flames.
IBM ThinkPad, Ask Jeeves is now sad.
Game cartridges are now no longer used for games.Adobe Flash plugin, LiveJournal bloggin,
Super 8 cameras recording everything they found,
Motorola Razr, connecting on Friendster.
After years I still hear the AOL start up sound.[AOL sound]
To record or pause a show we would use TiVo.
T-Mobile Sidekick, Buying things on Craigslist.
Watching shows on UHF, playing with my Giga Pet
Google Glass, Nexus One, MySpace is now done.iPod music players, Atari Space Invaders,
one day photo booths, Dial up internet,
Blackberries once owned, typewriters, Flip phones.
Dot matrix printers I’m not done yet.
What was once cutting edge, now is tech that is dead.
They have all gone away, what more do I have to say?We threw it in a fire. Tech that once was so hot but now is so not.
We threw it in a fire. Tech that once had its day but now it’s passé.Laser disks are no more, Commodore 64,
Compaq Deskpro, Game boy from Nintendo,
VHS or Betamax, Cars playing 8-tracks.
But before I must go, apologies to Billy Joel!We threw it in a fire. Tech that once was so hot but now is so not.
We threw it in a fire. Tech that once had its day but now it’s passé.
