Recently, I read someone who had been a young teen in the early 1960s write somewhere something along the lines of: “Lots of kids today know the words to ‘She Loves You’ by the Beatles just like we still do. That’s a 60-year-old song. When we were the kids in 1963, we didn’t care at all about our grandparents’ music…”
That got me thinking – which is always dangerous. LOL! The Go-Between, author L. P. Hartley‘s 1953-published novel, contains possibly one of the most famous single-sentence opening paragraphs of the last century:
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
It is commonly misquoted as some version of “The past is another country…” – which to me is actually a better, more evocative and haunting, line than Hartley’s original.
The novel is set in “1900.” When Hartley in 1953 wrote of that time some “50 years” earlier, that then distance in time, to him, and to readers, made it indeed seem much like “a foreign country.” And there was nothing new in them feeling so.
For such had been the case, also, for those living in “1900” who looked back, for instance, to “1850.” And much the same for those of “1850” considering a long ago “1800.” And on and on back…
I am going to offer this suggestion: I believe our perception of the passage of time, and especially what is “past” vs. what is “present,” is changing. If it ever truly was, the recent past is no longer nearly quite as much “another country” as it once was. In fact, it is more familiar to us than ever. Why?
Example. Sophie Arnould was a mid-1700s French opera star. All we know of her is what was written about her. We have not a single second recorded of her actually singing. There are uncounted examples like her in history, of course: Those who were “stars” during their lives who are, today, unheard and mostly unknown.
The invention of recording, by which in shorthand terms here I mean both sound and video, in the mid/later-1800s did not truly make an impression generally until the early-mid 1900s. For example, although he lived recently enough to be photographed, we have no recording of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) actually delivering a speech. The first U.S. president to have had his voice recorded is believed to be Benjamin Harrison (in office, 1889-93), probably around 1889.
Similarly, actors and singers from before around “1900” were ONLY in “existence” during their actual lifespans; the moment they died, they were literally DEAD. All of their talent and accomplishments died with them. They were remembered only by those who saw them perform or heard them sing… and as those who did died too all trace of their talents disappeared from history – and all we are left with are their written reputations.
Compare that to the later 20th century and this early 21st. Just thirty years ago, in 1994, it was relatively common for younger people (I was then one) to listen to music that was some “30-40 years old.” Not only were the Beatles wildly popular when all of them were still living in 1964, they were also wildly popular in 1994 – thanks to recordings. Back in 1964, however, it was NOT nearly as common for my father’s generation to listen to music recorded in “1934” – meaning some “60 years” before 1994. And when my grandparents were dating in “1934,” there was NO recorded music in any amount produced in “1900,” when Hartley’s novel is set.
Thus our “present day,” in a sense, keeps “elongating.” True, songs and hymns, thanks to written lyrics and musical notation, have long been remembered and sung down the generations; but we did NOT hear the originator singing them… if they were dead. In 2024, though, we have people born in “2009,” and more recently, who indeed do know all the words to “She Loves You,” that now 61-year-old song, as performed by the original Beatles, including by two members who are now deceased (one for nearly 44 years), ONLY due to recording.
Similarly, Humphrey Bogart. A highly-regarded actor while he was alive, he died in January 1957. Had his career been unrecorded, he would today be largely unknown aside from what is shared with us about him by those – now decidedly aging – who knew/saw him when he was alive, as well as due to what we might read that was written about him by contemporaries. Instead, thanks to recordings, people born DECADES after he DIED are still watching 1942’s Casablanca, as others to follow likely also will well into the future. Like all other recorded actors who are now dead, Bogart is in a sense still quite “alive” and will always be.
What about “ordinary” people? Before the 1900s, aside from maybe some letters or other written words, and, if they were well-off, portraits or photos (from the mid-1800s), when someone “ordinary” died, they too were also gone. Their life was over and they “existed” only in the memories of those still living who had known them in person. After those latter people had all died too, departed with them were the memories of those they had known who had once lived.
By this 21st century that is not the case any longer nearly to the same extent. With many of us now having recordings of deceased friends and family, although they may be difficult to watch and to listen to, such recordings’ existences keep such deceased people of “the past” here in “the present” at least in a figurative sense. That was impossible for all of human history prior to just the last generation, or two, or maybe three.
An important side issue is this. Casablanca was produced when sound films were only about “15 years” old; and the Beatles wrote “She Loves You” when popular music had been recorded for only about “40 years.” By now, in 2024, we have a CENTURY of films and music accumulated behind us. Daily, new movies and music of course are coming out, yet lots of people are still watching Bogart, and listening to the Beatles, as well as also similar actors/singers from those “earlier times,” when those actors/singers, if they had been “performing” prior to “1900,” would have been, like Sophie Arnould, basically forgotten some “60-80” years after their performances because they would not have been recorded. So an unintended consequence of recording is it may present new actors/singers with a difficulty “breaking through” and getting noticed.
In terms of publishing, in 2024 we are being it seems buried by new books hourly. (I hope to contribute further to that with a new novel by the end of the year.) I have not seen an academic estimate, but I will stick my neck out here and guess-estimate that more books will have been published in just “2024” than were published in ALL of the 1700s. Adding all of those to the fact that “classic” books, such as Jane Austen’s, are more readily accessible than ever before, much as with living actors and singers it is perhaps also increasingly difficult therefore for living authors to reach readers who of course now have more reading choices available to them as readers than readers had at any time previously in history – thanks to that offshoot of recording: the internet.
Due to recording technology, the past now is NOT as “foreign” or “another” as it once was. We live in a sense in a “perpetual present.” Today, “the past” is, in many respects, always “present,” a reality that would be utterly stunning to humans who had lived and died prior to about “1850.”
Had Taylor Swift been wowing them from stages back in “1724,” today, like Sophie Arnould, few would likely know who she was. Recording has actually arguably altered “time” itself. In all likelihood, Taylor Swift will still be listened to in “the present” that will then also be “2324.”
Have a good day, wherever you are, in 2024. 🙂
R. J. Nello 
I love reading. I am addicted to the written words of our God given history.
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I wrote a (not nearly so good) blog post on this topic recently.
Titled TV Cops – then and now.
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