Mythic Jukebox Musical Dance

In 1889, Louis Glass and William S. Arnold invented the nickel-in-the-slot phonograph, in San Francisco, installing it at the Palais Royal Saloon, 303 Sutter street, two blocks away from the offices of their Pacific Phonograph Company. This was an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph[6] retrofitted with a device patented under the name of ‘Coin Actuated Attachment for Phonograph’. The music was heard via two of eight listening tubes.

Authorities and communities tried to ban jukeboxes in the 1940s and 1950s, when moral guardians saw them as corrupting youth and promoting “low-class” music. Cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles debated restrictions, and some towns outright prohibited jukeboxes in bars or restaurants.

Key Moments of Jukebox Bans

1940s moral panic: As jukeboxes spread after Prohibition, critics argued they encouraged drinking, delinquency, and “immoral dancing.” Some municipalities passed ordinances banning them in public places.

New York City (1940s): Officials considered jukeboxes “noise nuisances” and tried to restrict them in restaurants and soda shops.

Chicago & Midwest towns: Local governments banned jukeboxes in certain venues, claiming they attracted “rowdy crowds.”

1950s rock ’n’ roll era: With Elvis and Little Richard blasting from jukeboxes, conservative groups renewed efforts to ban them, seeing the machines as spreading rebellious music.

Why They Were Targeted

Control of taste: Jukeboxes bypassed radio DJs and record executives, letting ordinary people choose what they wanted to hear. That grassroots power worried elites.

Association with “juke joints”: The very term “jukebox” came from African American juke joints in the South, which were stigmatized by white authorities.

Generational clash: Adults feared the music choices of teenager’s jazz, blues, and later rock would undermine traditional values.

The bans were tries at erasure to silence care, rhythm, and grassroots choice. Yet jukeboxes survived, glowing defiantly in diners and bars, becoming archives of what people really wanted to hear.

Mythic Jukebox Musical Dance

They called it scandalous, neon temptation,

but we knew it as a sovereign archive.

A nickel dropped, a flame released,

each song a correction against silence.

The jukebox was no machine,

it was a chorus of care,

a protest glowing in glass and chrome,

feeding jazz, blues, and rock to the hungry.

They tried to ban it, erase it, shame it,

but the jukebox stood like a witness,

logging every choice as living ritual,

every track a sovereign dispatch.

Today, we honor its scandalous truth:

that care, rhythm, and need,

cannot be erased.

We need; therefore, we sing.

We choose; therefore, we archive.

We dance; therefore, we flame.

Narrator (calm, ceremonial):

“They came with ordinances, papers stamped in ink, declaring the jukebox a nuisance, a scandal, a threat. They feared the rhythm of care, the chorus of need, the sovereign flame of choice.”

Jukebox (voice resonant, metallic yet warm):

“You call me scandal, but I am archive.

You call me noise, but I am chorus.

Every coin dropped is a sovereign correction,

every song chosen is a protest against silence.”

Authorities (stern, echoing):

“We ban you for corrupting youth,

for feeding jazz and blues into their veins,

for letting rock ’n’ roll shake their bodies free.”

Jukebox (defiant, glowing brighter):

“You fear the wolf of care,

but I feed it anyway.

You fear the rhythm of need,

but I archive it anyway.

You cannot erase me

I am the flame in chrome and glass,

the archive of what people truly want to hear.”

Chorus (audience call and response):

“We need; therefore, we sing.

We choose; therefore, we archive.

We dance; therefore, we flame.”

written, created, edited by

Vicki Lawana Trusselli

Trusselli Art

Outstages Cafe Production

California

copyright 2025