It might be hyperbolic to refer to Jack White as the final rock star, but I think it’s fair to say he’s the last great one rooted in the Industrial Age. It’s not just the garage rock parked in a time before driverless cars but also his lyrical imagery. In the 80 words of “Hello Operator,” how many means of communication now obsolete or in their obsolescence are worried over? Telephone operators, payphones, mail carriers, carrier pigeons, obituaries, coinage, paper money, paper documents and print newspapers.
Hello operator
Can you give me number nine?
Can i see you later?
Will you give me back my dime?
Turn the oscillator
Twist it with a dollar bill
Mail man bring the paper
Leave it on my window sill
Find a canary
A bird to bring my message home
Carry my obituary
My coffin doesn’t have a phone
How you gonna get the money?
Send papers to an empty home?
How you gonna get the money?
Nobody to answer the phone
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Jack and Meg discuss the Tesla coil, invented in 1891: