The Turn of Progress

The bakelite disc revolved at seventy-eight To end up in shards shattered, an inevitable fate Heavy and brittle and full of opera Was replaced with a vinyl at thirty-three With covers a delight to see Light and supple full of she loves you, yeah And then came the cassette from nowhere And pretty soon the Walkman walked And less and less and less teens talked But nodded heads as they made their beds As Billy-Jean was not their lover They were soon to discover Shiny discs of digital delight And very soon car tape decks were out of sight But oh so quick the mp3 stick And iPod player with iTunes click Took over the world And we were lost As the pace of progress counted the cost And the Bakelite discs became collector’s items And the vinyl’s came back as the nightclub dims And eight track stereo was attracted to rims And yet we are not done, as no-one has won But we all seem to have lost The times that we had When it was still turning At thirty three And seventy eight