In the mid-1980s, the school dinner ladies went on strike and so on certain days, everyone had to go home for their lunch. Or was it the teachers? Somebody was striking anyway, and I support them 100% with hindsight, but whenever it happened I had to go to a mate's house. I lived too far away from school - if my mum had driven over to pick me up, then driven me back home, I'd have arrived just in time to set off back to school. So I went to a mate's house. Not a close friend - to be honest, thinking about this now, it's the first time I've thought about him for almost forty years... and the only thing I really remember about him is that he had a Sodastream.
Owning a Sodastream was the height of sophistication from a 14 year old's perspective. You could make your own fizzy drinks using tap water, gloopy syrup and compressed air... just pull that handle down and get busy with the fizzy! Never mind that they tasted teeth-rottingly disgusting - this was cutting edge tech for 1986, and owning one made you the envy of all your friends. Unsurprisingly then, the Sodastream influenced a generation of songwriters... well, these guys, anyway.
Australian indie duo Pete Cohen and Karl Smith were - rather surprisingly - the only band I could find named after this weird Israeli beverage making machine. But there were lots of songs that mentioned said device. Like this one, from an "ebullient, heartfelt indie-folk duo" discovered on the camp of bands...
Pack some wine, a rug and a magazine ,
Sandwiches and a SodaStream
And know Monday can wait till we get clean.
Pull Tiger Tail were a London indie band from the early noughties, which probably throws them into the landfill category. But I've heard much worse...
When will all the waiting end?
Extremes return to life again
Day in, day out, I want caffeine
And all I find is SodaStream
Better get into your air raid shelter to keep safe from the next band...
Pray to American Idol
YouTube haircut so in style
SodaStream spray ricochet
In your face like: "It's okay!"
Next up, a band named after Peter Bowles' wife in To The Manor Born...
Beneath the SodaStream
When you begin to dream
When you said, "Nothing's new"
Made fucking zero sense from you
And now, some Norwegian heavy metal guys, planning their birthday party...
I want my birthday pony yeah
Don't want no race car track
I want to ride the pony back
I want my. I want my
Don't want no pinball machine
I don't want no SodaStream
Come on!
Here's a couple more from the deep dive...
Never heard of them? Here's someone a little more well known...
I’ve got a cartoon heart and a SodaStream
Baby you and me we’re a young love’s dream
Drinking it down like we know what to do with it
But this guy...? Who knows?
Richard Belton is one of those artists whose work I stumble across from time to time on the tube of you, yet they appear to have no online promotional presence providing any kind of biographical info. It makes me wonder if they're just computer-generated AI nonsense. Even if that's the case, this was the best ode to SodaStream I found during my extensive search...
Peasant water, meet Sodastream
I know the world is dark. The world is mean
Until you light it up from 1 to 3
Then you've been fizzled by the fizzy king
Fizzy water, I'm obsessed just by the notion of it
Fizzy water, they should fill the fucking ocean with it
Fizzy water, now I'm spending all my money on it
Cause fizzy water don't let me down
So many flavours and I don't know why
I wanted water, not a cherry pie
I was a smoker and I know it's wrong
But I was as hydrated as the day is long
Fizzy water, I'm obsessed just by the notion of it
Fizzy water, they should fill the fucking ocean with it
Fizzy water, now I'm spending all my money on it
Cause fizzy water don't let me down
I can remember Sodastreams from the early 1970s. Their fizzy products were disgusting then as well, so bad in fact that my brother and I did not pester our parents to buy one. Looks like the company could not be bothered to try and improve their product over the following decade.
ReplyDeleteI fail to understand why they're still around. They should have gone the same way as Betamax and 8 track cartridges.
DeleteTakes me back. I would have been the same as you, too far from the school to go home for lunch or 'tea', if there was something on in the evening, so one of my friends who lived in the fancy new housing estates built in the 70s would have had invited me to their home the lure of the soda stream that seemed to go along with every new build back then. It was definitely inferior pop but we did like our gadgets back then. The toastie maker another must have gadget but if you put tomato between the bread you scalded your mouth on the first bite.
ReplyDeleteI still enjoy the occasional toasted sandwich... but I never understood the lure of the Sodastream.
DeleteAs with George and Alyson, it was the '70s Sodastream I remember; two close friends and I used to take it in turn to stop off at eachother's houses after school but once one of them got said futuristic gadget no-one else got a look-in. It was always round to Lesley's for a Sodastream Coca Cola and Runaround on the telly. I do remember being disappointed by the taste but somehow convinced myself it was good just because.... Same goes for the home-made Popcorn kit her family also invested in.
ReplyDeleteI bet they were the first to get a Microwave too.
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