Everything Playing
1967 | Pop
“Then I gave money to Joe, 'cause Bill said he knows he´ll pay me back in time, and Bill´s gettin´paid to know if anyone´s lyin.”
Trivia
- The song hit #46 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- Lead singer John Sebastian penned this and most of the other numbers on this album.
- Everything Playing was the first album with guitarist Jerry Yester in place of Zal Yanovsky and marked the bands last album as a quartet.
THE HOT TAKES
Luke Tatum
Splendid simplicity. The clicking of a typewriter adds a nice stylistic touch. Not your usual pop song this time! We have here some amount of economic analysis. Well, a look at various ways money can be used, at least. Many libertarians are libertarians because of economics, so it's worth spending some time on. While we're not exactly quoting Human Action here, it is refreshing to see money is not being called the "root of all evil" or any such nonsense. Money can be anything, from enormous stone wheels to cigarettes, as history has shown us. Like any other tool, it is only as good or evil as its user allows.
Sherry Voluntary
This sweet little Schoolhouse Rocks song is pretty straight forward. Money is a very useful tool, and something most people don't really understand. The worst thing about the general misunderstanding of money is that a lot of people see it as the problem rather than a tool for the solution. The naiveye of those who think you can get rid of money and be more free and and more prosperous reveals their extreme ignorance. The bottom line is you cannot divorce economics and freedom. Economics has everything to do with how people interact with one another and what incentivizes behaviors. One of the best things you can do as a libertarian is to gain a basic understanding of economics and help people gain a better sense of the importance of how they view money.
Nicky P
I won't wax poetic about a song with marvelously few lyrics. I enjoy the song because it lays out how complicated commerce needs to and could be without miles of government intrusion. I enjoy how it even lays out how consumer protections can be handled reasonably. Sadly I think this song might represent the last time any general person in America had any concept of how a basic economy works.