Computer L.O.V.E. pt.3: I Need a Data Date

Alone again on Valentine's day? Don't fret, it's just a nasty commercialised invention dreamed up by card manufacturers and florists to make a quick buck. True love will find you in the end...

Back in the 60's before they found the internet, it was much harder to set up a liaison with a potential beau - you had to actually go up and talk to them. Imagine that?

However, changes were afoot with the advent of computer dating.

Now, there aren't many songs that cover the subject of feeding your vital statistics into a computer, which will then correlate the information, and eventually spit out a number of suitable matches...

Here's one though: It's French teeny-bop superstar France Gall, banging out a saccharine Motown-style number. In German. But there are strange things happening in this little ditty:
- first there's a mass of bizarre vocal and synth sounds flying around to evoke the inner workings of the computer.
- then in comes an authoritarian-sounding German voice to bridge the chorus and verses.
- and then the middle-eight veers off into The Beatles' 'Eight Days A Week'.
Super-fantastische!

France Gall - Der Computer Nr.3
[buy France Gall: iTunes | Amazon]


I call this number, for a data date...

Another lonely night, stare at the TV screen...

I don’t know what to do, I need a rendez-vous...

Kraftwerk – Computer Love
[buy Kraftwerk: iTunes | Amazon]


Is computer love wrong if you have no-one else to share your love with? Just so long as you don't try and interface with yours.

Mister Fat Trucker loves computers. But they don't love him. Tragic.

Fat Truckers – I Love Computers
[buy Fat Truckers: iTunes | Amazon]


And finally.
A cautionary tale of what might happen if you give your computer a little bit too much love. The result: A boy-girl-computer love triangle, as evoked in 80's cinematic cheese-fest Electric Dreams

Phil Oakey & Giorgio Moroder - Together in Electric Dreams


You have been warned.

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images scanned from Ladybird book How it Works: The Computer