Ongoing History: The very, VERY first musical recording was about sex because of course, it was…

Think about how much of today’s music is focused on sex. Lemme tell you something: it’s not just today’s music. In fact, the very, very first song ever recorded was about sex. Back in April of 1850, a French inventor named Edouard-Leon-Scott de Martinville created a device called the “phonoautograph.” It didn’t exactly record music, but it was able to draw a primitive waveform on a piece of paper. This was the first time anyone could see what music looked like.

That song was called “Au Claire de la lune.” It tells the story of a young man named Lubin who goes from door to door, fruitlessly looking for a pen. But then he knocks on the door of a young woman who is willing to help him out. The song concludes “The pen was looked for, the light was looked for/With all that looking, I don’t know what was found/But I do know that the door will shut behind them.”

Again, this was 1850. The more things change, right?