B~day Wishes

[selfmademug]

Btw, I'd like to know what an "LP" is. Anyone care to tell me ?

It's a standard phonograph record, to be played at 33 1/3 rpm. LP stands for long-playing or long play, to distinguish it from the earlier standard: the smaller, faster and thus doubly shorter 78 rpm records.

And I am a hundred years old for knowing this, apparently.

All record players of that ancient era had 3 speeds to choose from, 33 1/3, 45, or 78. Actually my Dad had a decent collection of Jazz on 78s that he played when we were kids. The only one I remember loving was a Bunny Berigan record, I think it might have been called Take It, Bunny! I suspect some of them would have been valuable if he'd kept them.

[Mr. Average]

Many of the old phonographs also had a speed option of 16 rpm, which, evidently, was useful when rumours like "Paul is Dead" were so widely circulated and people would swear that if you played certain songs either backward or at a slower speed (or both!) you could hear things that absolutely, positively proved that Paul was indeed killed in a car accident. No doubt about it. That, and a dozen or so other rumours that carried us "conspiracy theory" kids through the hotter than July summer months, trying desperately to link a sound heard a 16 rpms to a real life event that, total, is the substance of most Geraldo broadcasts.

In any event, "Paint it Black", "Last Train to Clarksville", Edwin Starrs "War" [ugghh, What is it Good For, absolully nuthin'], and Eric Burdons "Spill the Wine" sounded really funny at 16 rpm. We would laugh till we cried.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Good God, Y'all.