Dial Up Days
A ragtime tune about the early days of the internet.
Verse 1
C / A7 / D- / G7
There was a time when going on line
F / A7 / D-
Was something few people could do
E- / A-7
You needed a computer and a telephone
D-7 / G7
A modem and an ISP too
C / A7 / D- / G7
You paid for your hours and there wasn’t much power
F / A7 / D-
And at home was where you had to stay
F / F#dim
‘Cause you could only make a call
C / A7
when you were plugged in a wall
D- / G7 / C
Back in the dial-up days
Verse 2 (same chords as verse 1)
And not only that, to comment or chat
You had to find a Usenet feed
Special software was needed if you wanted to read it
And access was not guaranteed
There was always a lag ’cause servers would drag
So flame wars took so long to blaze
If you were an online jerk
You had to put in the work
Back in the dial-up days
Bridge
F / F-
Oh, it was aggravating to disable call waiting
E7 / A-
So you wouldn’t get kicked off line
E7 / A-
And heaven forbid you traveled out of town
D- / G7
Where a local access number was impossible to find
Verse 3 (same chords as verse 1 & 2)
Then they’d initiate a new software update
And the progress bar would make your eyes glaze
It took forever to download ‘em
With your 56k modem
Back in the dial-up days
Sometimes you couldn’t get through and video barely moved
Back in the dial-up days
You may giggle and scoff, at least we could turn it off
Back in the dial-up, where everything took a while, but
Those were the dial-up days.
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