Jeffrey Lewis, The Voltage - LPs lyrics

I don’t know how it started I suppose
It was about the tenth grade
I never bought much music I just listened
To whatever was played
But there was classic rock there on the radio
And it was blowing my mind
And it was all the records no one wanted
Now so they were easy to find

So I started getting LPs
They only cost a little and these LPs
Are all the ones I needed from the sixties
With all the psychedelic art on
All the great sleeves
Much cooler and much cheaper than the CDs
And that’s the way I caught the disease
I caught the disease for LPs

There wasn’t any internet a lot of the
Times you just took a shot
Pretty soon you figured out what records
Would be awesome or not
If the year was from the sixties it
Was probably good bang for your buck
If the year was from the eighties
It was guaranteed to totally suck

I started learning about the LPs
At that time education just cost low fees
Three dollars for this Dylan
Record oh yes please
And The Cream, and Rolling Stones
And Arlo Guthrie
A giant treasure trove all for pennies
And that’s how I caught the disease
I caught the disease for LPs

By 1994
I had completed all my Zeppelin and Floyd
(Zeppelin and Floyd)
I had all the early traffic but their
Later stuff just made me annoyed
(made me annoyed)
You realize that the radio just scratches
At the top of the dirt (top of the dirt)
When four bucks can buy you Crown
Of Creation with the lyric insert

So I had a lot of LPs
My friends were mostly clueless
It was just me
In an ocean of cheap vinyl like a black sea
I hardly had an income but it was easy
An awesome world awaited with a cheap key
And sometimes in the garbage
They were just free
And that's how I caught the disease
I caught the disease for LPs

And then the nineties ended and I
Wasn’t no teenager no more
(teenager no more)
I started getting shakes when I would
Pass any used record store
(used record store)
I got the finger muscles you develop
When you flip through a stack
(flip through a stack)
Crate digging for the cheap and obscure
And there was no turning back

A total junkie for the LPs
And nothing in the world was gonna help me
You'd see me quit no sooner
Than see hell freeze
And there was nothing like the
Thrill of getting lucky
I'd be flying five sheets to the breeze
‘cause the world was still in wash in LPs
And I still had the disease for LPs
Nowadays, that stuff is so expensive
I don't bother to try
Everything is reissued and plus everything
Is priced really high
The field is overcrowded it’s impossible
To get a good fix
So I walk right past the used records
And flip through the used compact disks

Yeah nowadays it’s mostly CDs
No wants to keep them so there's plenty
Folk, and Punk, and Prog, Bluegrass and Rap
And Indie bonus tracks and liner notes empty
As long as I could still
Make a good discovery
I still got that music hunger disease
That disease I caught from LPs
When they were dirt cheap in the 1990s

Whatever people don't want that the
Time to get it take a chance on something it
Might blow your mind
And if it's cheap there’s less
Chance you'll regret it
No more frowning at my stacks
Because of the stupid albums I used to try
Nowadays, looking back
I just regret the ones I didn’t buy