Country song lyrics are sometimes deliberately intended to take you back in time, as with Alan Jackson’s “Remember When” and Mark Wills’ “19 Somethin’.” Other times, though, a gold title will contain a lyric so jarringly dated it stands out like a sore thumb. When Collin Raye sings “Get a cellular phone and you won’t have to worry,” in “That’s My Story,” you’re immediately transported back to 1993 when not everyone had a mobile phone, and those who did actually referred them with that stuffy-sounding “cellular” name.

When we asked readers to come up with more, there was no shortage of colorful examples.

“The one that gets me these days is the line ‘Put a dollar’s worth of gas in his pickup truck’ from Hal Ketchum’s [1991 debut hit] ‘Small Town Saturday Night’,” says Nine North Records and Turnpike Music president Larry Pareigis. “In today’s average SUV, that wouldn’t get you five miles in the city.”

KILT Houston APD/MD Greg Frey cites, “Any song that mentions a payphone. My daughter, Hannah, is 9 and I’m pretty sure she has no concept of what a payphone even is.” Interestingly, Frey notes, “It’s not limited to classic country songs either. Chris Young uses a payphone in the video for ‘The Man I Want To Be.’ Surely an up and coming country star can afford a cell phone and a data plan!”

Treehouse Records’ Jay Thomas and veteran Nashville air personality Dick “Bama” Byington both cite Terri Clark’s first hit, 1995’s “Better Things To Do,” and its reference to missing the TV talk show “The Phil Donahue Show.” (Lyric: “I’d love to talk to you, but then I’d miss ‘Donahue’/That’s right, I’ve got better things to do.”) The show’s 26-year run on national television probably made it a safe lyric bet at the time, but it ended its run just a year after the song was released.

“Also the [1983] Anne Murray song ‘A Little Good News’,” says Jay Phillips, PD at KCXY Camden, Ark. “She woke up to Bryant Gumbel on TV. He did the ‘Today’ show then.”

Quarterback Records president Chris Allums singles out Travis Tritt’s “Here’s A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)” from 1991, both for the price of a call in those days, and the implied use of a payphone with that quarter. Like Frey, Allums wonders “where I could even find a payphone these days.”

For the same reasons, KIIM Tucson, Ariz., PD Buzz Jackson picks the Wilkinsons’ 1998 hit “26 Cents.”

Anne Weaver Price, VP of promotion at Rocky Comfort Records, mentions “Any song that references ‘putting a dime in the jukebox.’ Those jukeboxes (if you can find them) are expensive now!”

Beverlee Brannigan, OM for Journal Broadcast Group’s Wichita, Kan., cluster, and KSOP Salt Lake City PD Deb Turpin both cite Blake Shelton’s 2001 debut hit “Austin.” Says Brannigan, “The concept of only being able to reach someone by leaving a message on their home answering machine is so … quaint. But cute.”

Turpin, consultant Keith Hill and Premiere Radio Networks’ Robin Rhodes all mention John Schneider’s “At The Sound Of The Tone” from 1986. The lyrics mention a Code-A-Phone, a device that, as I reported in a February column about bad lyrics, hasn’t been manufactured since 1984.

Poor Collin Raye really took a beating in this little exercise. In addition to the song cited above, Phillips and Turpin mention his 1994 song “Little Rock” where Raye sings about “selling VCRs in Arkansas at a Wal Mart.” And Show Dog-Universal Music’s Greg Sax mentions 1997’s “Little Red Rodeo,” asking, “Do they even make [those] anymore?”

In a similar vein, my colleague at Radio-Info.com, Jessica Harrell, cites Alan Jackson’s “Mercury Blues.” She quotes the lyrics, “Well if I had money, tell you what I’d do/I’d go downtown and buy a Mercury or two,” and notes that’s “hard to do with Mercurys being phased out.”

“When Lonestar came out with ‘No News’ [in 1996], the line ‘send a fax’ made it the hippest song ever recorded,” says Paul Johnson, interactive sales manager at Beasley Broadcasting in Fayetteville, N.C. “Now faxes are about obsolete.”

Turpin had lots more examples, among them, Conway Twitty’s “Red Neckin’ Love Makin’ Night” from 1981. In addition to the title itself, which she says is dated, the lyrics say, “I got some boogie-woogie music on an old 8-track.” Turpin also mentions the production in Dolly Parton’s 1980 hit “9 To 5,” particularly the typewriter sound effects. As an aside, she notes, “I had a kid in here interning the other day and needed him to type up some 1099s. He had to ask me how to turn that Selectric on! And he really had trouble with the whiteout key.”

Finally, KMLE Phoenix morning co-hosts Tim Hattrick and Willy D. Loon have taken it upon themselves to update an old classic. When they perform David Allan Coe’s 1975 hit “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” with their All Earl Band, they change the ending to: “You never even call me, well I wonder why you don’t text me, why don’t you ever tweet me by my name!”