1895
Don't know how many of you have heard the song "1985" by Bowling for Soup, but I quite like it. (For some reason, a clip of it is frequently in the video loop at the local Target). This song name-checks a whole bunch of mid-eighties touchstones (if I may mix a metaphor). "Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana, there was U2, and Blondie, and music still on MTV.... She's seen all the classics, she knows every line, Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, even St. Elmo's Fire." I was just idly wondering what a song about 1895 might refer to, but I don't know enough about pop-culture in the gilded age. Which authors were important? What playwrites? The Wikipedia entry for the year isn't terribly illuminating.