Sirens. Radio TV Mirror. July 1955. Print ad detail.

Internet Archive

1962

I was a miserable musician myself, but I knew how to use music in my own way. Over the years I’d inspired some epic kisses by occupying a barstool alone in a dark, inconspicuous corner and taking over a juke box. I never minded being out all by myself. I loved observing their bodies react to my selection, people jump to their feet to dance, eyes widen and shoot directly to a lover or friend, a full table start to sing along together, or just a solo, grumpy old man start tapping his feet on the rung. In the right crowd I could completely transform a room without anyone even knowing I was there.. except maybe the bartender. Old Fashioned, please. It was magic to me.

Café, Beaufort, South Carolina, 1955. Robert Frank. Gelatin silver exhibition print.

[from flickr]

* * * *

Ninety-nine percent of the world’s lovers are not with their first choice. That’s what makes the jukebox play.

- Willie Nelson

Juke box, 1970. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive. 

🎶 🎶 🎶 juke boxes are so cute 🥰

1968

Woman in a roadside diner with a juke box at her side, 1963

Photo: Thomas Hoepker

"Mets tes cent balles - Dans le juke-box - Mets ton argent ton inox dans la fente en nickel." 💿

Michel Jonasz

Gif Gify/ TCM

1972 Hit Songs

* * * *

I remember this “hit” list as I was working as a short order cook in “The Village” in NYC. The restaurant where I worked had a juke box and during the lunch rush, each and every song on this list would light up and play …. over and over. Some of them made me flinch every time i heard them. But it was mostly a fun job for awhile and then I took a go-go dancer job and we danced to the tunes in the juke box. Yes. All of them. I don’t think I will ever under any circumstances listen to “American Pie” again. Now “I’ll Take You There” by the Staples Singers :: that still bears listening. Also “O Girl” by the Chi-Lites.

+

“Then she spotted in the corner, glowing wonderfully, a Wurlitzer jukebox. ' Holy shit!' It was like being on a commuter train through the Bronx and seeing among the piles of crushed cars a pasture with a lone white horse.” ― Garth Risk Hallberg, City on Fire

Games room, SIOTOUR Resort Club, Balatonföldvár, 1972. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.