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Going postal ... with music

Take a letter...
Rob Weir
/
Flickr
Take a letter...

We’re going postal on you this week. Songs about letters and mail abound, and no wonder, with over 570,000 workers, the US Postal Service is the second largest employer in the US, behind Wal-Mart.

Here’s one of the very best known songs about mail carriers, it’s The Marvelettes from 1961, when TV was still black and white:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2alZrNstGU&feature=related

Turns out we’re writing fewer letters these days – with email, texting, twitter. As a result, First Class mail has declined by about 30percent in the last decade. Also contributing to the decline in mail is Pat Boone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEsjo8gt2VY

Mail figures prominently in this Beatles classic – valentines, birthday greetings, postcards ... this one’s got it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3chFhCP5mQ

Well, speaking of “postal,” nobody does it better than Newman from Seinfeld:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChJLDqDKMqY&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL25C0F4AAA4285508

Every week on “Record bin Roulette,” KPLU’s John Kessler and John Maynard put an insightful and fun spin on a century's worth of discarded vinyl. The feature is published here and airs on KPLU 88.5 every Thursday during Morning Edition, All Things Considered and on Weekend Saturday Edition.

A professional bassist for over 20 years, John has been at KNKX since 1999 where he hosts All Blues on Saturday and Sunday nights. He was previously a senior producer of BirdNote for 19 years, and the primary recording engineer for hundreds of KNKX Studio Sessions.
John Maynard started working in radio in the seventies as a DJ at Seattle’s KJR AM which at the time was the dominant AM station in the Seattle market. After a brief stint as a restaurateur and night club owner, Maynard returned to radio with Robin Erickson, creating the hugely popular “Robin and Maynard Show.” In the more than 20 years under that marquee, Maynard flew with the Blue Angels, piloted the Goodyear Blimp, sang with Donny Osmond and hung out in a Universal Studios bar with Kojak (Telly Savalas).