PODCAST · society
Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs
by Boneapart and Yulia
Every Tuesday, Boneapart and Yulia spin three songs from 78rpm records more than 100 years old: ragtime, early jazz, blues, vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, dance bands and forgotten hits from the 1900s to the 1920s. Each episode follows a theme of the week, and every track is an acoustically recorded, public-domain gem played on period-appropriate phonographs and gramophones from a private collection of 78 rpm records. Along with the music come the stories: who made these recordings, what the world sounded like when they were new, and why these voices deserve to be remembered. Whether you’re a record collector, a lover of old-time music and the Jazz Age, or just curious what people were dancing to a century ago, pull up a chair. Three tunes, every Tuesday, played the way they were first heard. A Blind Skeleton production.
Episodes
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The Cemetery Blues
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we went looking for skeletons and found something better: three Columbia records, six years apart, that cannot agree on what a graveyard is for. First, “Death Letter Blues,” recorded in 1924 by Clara Smith — the “Queen of the Moaners,” no relation to Bessie…
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The Real Thing
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we’re chasing “the real thing”: being genuine, acting with intention, and doing something just because you love it. First, “Sallie Gooden,” recorded in 1922 by Texas fiddler Eck Robertson. He walked into Victor’s New York office uninvited, in full cowboy dress…
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Bell Records
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we’re taking a lighthearted look at the Bell record label — a 1920s New Jersey budget label that rarely recorded anything itself. It bought recordings from other companies and printed whatever name it liked on them. So we’re playing detective with three Bell...
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The Press
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we’re spending an episode with the press itself — inspired by a week that saw the White House bar three credentialed news outlets and the RNC pull CBC’s press pass — and we let three records from a hundred years ago do the arguing for us. First, “The Washington…
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Memories
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we’re spending an episode with memory itself — twenty-five years on from September 11th, right at the point where a shared national memory starts becoming history for the people who never lived through it, even as it stays close and present for everyone who did —...
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Lakes
This week’s Great Lake headline sent us hunting for a fitting protest song — turns out nobody in the 1910s was singing about who gets to name a body of water. So instead, Three Tune Tuesday goes looking for what people actually did put on record about lakes: three love songs, recorded across 35...
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Food Glorious Food
A hundred years before “supply chain” became a household word, people were already singing about it. This week we dig into three records — 1918 to 1926 — that capture the same anxieties making headlines today: a real worldwide banana shortage that became the biggest novelty hit of 1923 (“Yes! We...
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The Beach
Grab your bathing suit—we’re heading to the beach as Americans heard it more than a century ago. Through “By the Beautiful Sea,” “On the Beach at Waikiki,” and “In the Beautiful Seaside Air,” we’ll explore how the shoreline became a destination for recreation, romance, tropical fantasy, and good...
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Musical Interpretations
Isolde’s final six minutes in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde have been recorded again and again for over a century — but no two performers have ever told it quite the same way. This week, Boneapart and Yulia compare three recordings of the “Liebestod,” Wagner’s famous “love-death,” made 23 years...
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Schubert
Franz Schubert died at 31, but he left behind an almost unbelievable amount of music — and no two performances of it sounded quite the same, even a century ago. This week we dig into three very different acoustic-era recordings that show just how far his music could stretch: an unfinished…
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Strike!
While Canada’s WestJet flight attendants walk the picket line this month over unpaid working hours, we’re digging back a hundred years to find out what the lead-up to a strike actually sounded like on record. This week’s three records were never meant as protest songs — Charlie Poole’s “Can I…
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Empire
The Commonwealth Games began life as the British Empire Games, making them the perfect inspiration for this week’s Three Tune Tuesday. Through three fascinating recordings from the early twentieth century, we explore how music reflected the rise, confidence, and changing legacy of the British...
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Languages
This week, Three Tune Tuesday marks the anniversary of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone with three recordings celebrating the power of language. We begin with Róża Kiołbassa-Kwasigroch’s Polish “Laleczko ma,” recorded for Victor on July 21, 1911, before travelling to prewar Warsaw for Gershon...
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Discovery and Gold
Inspired by the documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time, this episode of Three Tune Tuesday follows a trail from gold-rush dreams to silent-film ghosts. Dawson City was built by people chasing treasure in the Yukon, but decades later another kind of treasure was discovered beneath the ground…
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The American Revolution
In this special Independence Day episode of Three Tune Tuesday, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence through three remarkable recordings that preserve the musical traditions of the nation’s earliest years. From the colonial dance tune Money Musk, to Durang Hornpipe Medley,...
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First Times
This week, it’s personal. Boneapart skipped into new territory at the GNCC Arena Championship bonspiel — a first time playing on Sunday, a first time in a championship final. Runners-up in the C final, sure, but the letter on the bracket isn’t the point. The point is he’d never been there before....
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Animal House
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we throw open the barn door for “Animal House” — three records with critters in the title and not a serious thought among them. No grand theme, no hidden agenda. Just a bird, some chickens, and a bee, scattered across two decades of shellac. We open with “On the...
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Games
Three Tune Tuesday plays tunes. So why does this week open with a man reciting a poem? Because the best story about a game isn’t always sung. The theme this week is “Games,” and we follow the stakes as they drain right out of one — from everything riding on a single swing, through the swagger of…
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D-Day
D-Day happened in 1944. Three Tune Tuesday only plays music recorded before 1927. So how do you tell a D-Day story with songs that predate it by decades? You tell the story underneath the story. This week, we’re not playing war songs. We’re playing three recordings that trace the arc of what…
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Double Middles
This week’s Three Tune Tuesday is personal, political, and unapologetically defiant. When Donald Trump attempted to stage a partisan concert and seven of nine scheduled artists declined to participate upon learning its true nature, it was a reminder that saying “no” is one of the most powerful...
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The Billy Murray Story
Today would have been his 149th birthday, and we are marking the occasion by telling the story of Billy Murray — the Denver Nightingale, the Phonograph King, the Irish-American kid from Colorado who talked his way into a New York recording studio in 1903 and never really left. We open with a song...
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Victoria Day
This week’s Three Tune Tuesday takes us back to the origins of Victoria Day — not the long weekend, not the fireworks, but the woman herself. We open with an “On This Day” entry: “June Brought the Roses,” recorded by contralto Marcia Freer on May 19, 1924, one hundred years to the day before this...
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Preventative Health (The Purge)
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we’re thinking about health — specifically, the kind of health check that requires preparation, a gown, and a level of personal exposure that no one particularly looks forward to. We open with a piece of good timing: “By the Saskatchewan,” recorded on this very…
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Cinco de Mayo
This week’s Three Tune Tuesday heads south of the border for Cinco de Mayo, tracing the sound of Mexican national pride through three recordings from the acoustic era. We open with a happy accident of the calendar: Arthur Pryor’s Band recorded Franz von Suppe’s “Jolly Robbers Overture” on this…
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April
April has a sound, and this week’s Three Tune Tuesday goes looking for it across three recordings that span a decade of the early phonograph era. We open with Charles Harrison’s 1922 Victor recording of “April Showers,” the optimistic Tin Pan Alley standard that Al Jolson had introduced just…
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420
Three Tune Tuesday marks 4/20 the only way it knows how: by reaching into the pre-1926 catalog and finding three recordings whose names, in combination, do all the work without saying anything at all. We open under the canopy — Renée Chemet’s violin drifting through Francis Thomé’s pastoral...
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Wax Cylinders
This week on Four Tune Tuesday, we’re going old. Very old. Rather than our usual today-in-history framing, we’re taking a detour into the cylinder era — the format that preceded the 78rpm disc entirely, and the one that gave birth to the commercial recording industry in the first place. We open…
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Easter and Passover
Spring arrives with music this week on Three Tune Tuesday, as we mark the convergence of Easter and Passover with three recordings that span the full range of what this season sounded like on early shellac. We open with a detour into pure coincidence — Vessella’s Italian Band recorded the…
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Inner Peace
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, the theme is Inner Peace — inspired by a vision over the weekend. We open with a Today in History pick: on this very date in 1907, Prince’s Military Band recorded The Dream of the Rarebit Fiend for Columbia Records, a chaotic, lurching musical portrait of the...
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The Follies of War
March 24, 1918: German forces crossed the Somme during Operation Michael, Ludendorff’s great spring offensive — the war machine’s last confident lunge toward a victory that never came. In 2026, with the Trump administration dismantling alliances built on the bones of two world wars, treating the...
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St. Patrick's Day
St. Patrick’s Day This week, Boneapart and Yulia talk about St. Patrick’s Day and share some songs celebrating the emerald isle. Mother Machree There’s a spot in my heart which no colleen may own there’s a depth in my soul never sounded or known There’s a place in my mem’ry my heart that you fill...
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The Blues
This week Yulia and Boneapart talk, not sing, The Blues. We discuss some history and share two very fantastic Blues songs that come from different backgrounds. Of course, we also play a song “Released on this Date In History.” Songs Irish Hearts Artist: Fred Van Eps (banjo solo, with orchestra)...
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Fuck Trump
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, Boneapart and Yulia open with a piece of music history: on this day in 1916, Swedish tenor Aage Wang-Holm stepped into a New York recording studio to record a tender song of longing for home, sung in his native language for the millions of Scandinavian immigrants...
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Egalite
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, Boneapart and Yulia explore the theme of Égalité — equality — through three recordings from the acoustic era. We open with a "This Day in History" spin: the All Star Trio's rollicking fox trot medley "You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet," recorded by Victor Arden, George...
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Six Song Sunday
Coinciding with The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville discovering that their theatre was actually opened in 1902, not 1903, Yulia and Boneapart visited the theatre and recorded a special, one-off, Three Tune Tuesday - named "Six Song Sunday" - in the hotel room the night before! All songs were...
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Fraternite
In this week's episode, Boneapart and Yulia continue their Liberty, Equality, Fraternity series with a look at Fraternité — brotherhood, solidarity, and standing together — themes that feel as urgent today as they did a century ago. We open with a "today in music history" moment: Marcel Journet's...
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Liberte
In this week's episode, Boneapart and Yulia both get ready to run through a wall after a listen to an early recording of Patrick Henry's famous (possibily anachronistic) Give me Liberty speech. They also listen to a couple other Liberte inspired runes and get all sorts of riled up.
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Imbolc
On this Imbolc-themed Three Tune Tuesday, Boneapart and Yulia spin three pre-1926 gems: a cheeky hospital flirtation in Billy Murray's "Good-night, Nurse" (1913), the hopeful robin-call of Charlotte Kirwan's "When the Robins Nest Again" (1913), and Irving Berlin's tender confession "Tell Her in…
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Self Care
The world today sucks. So do fascists. It's important to remember that fighting them also requires Self Care. In this episode we try for some levity as a method of self care.
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Its Electric
1925 was the year that "electric recording", or "orthophonic" records, were designed, greatly enhancing the sound of recorded music. This week Yulia and Boneapart discuss what made electric recording such a game changer and provide examples of just how much of an improvement over previous...
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Looking Forward
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we’re looking forward—not with naïve optimism, but with determination. Through a 1914 recording of Danse macabre, the unsettling call of Your King and Country Want You, and the resolute stance of We’ll Never Let the Old Flag Fall, we explore how resolve survives…
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Peace
Peace opens the 2026 season of Three Tune Tuesday by tracing how the idea of peace sounds when it’s assumed, hoped for, and finally begged for. We begin with a carefree 1913 duet recorded on this very day in history—light, romantic, and blissfully unaware of the catastrophe to come—before moving...
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New Years
New Year’s has a funny way of sneaking up on us. This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we slip into the quiet spaces between resolutions and reminiscence with three early recordings that circle home, goodbyes, and the people we carry forward with us. From ivy-clad nostalgia, to a polite-but-suggestive...
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Yule
This week Boneapart and Yulia discuss Yule, it's origins, and it's place in society. Oh, and they play songs to celebrate it, too.
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Hanukkah
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we explore Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, through early 20th-century recordings preserved by the Library of Congress. Rather than modern holiday songs, this episode listens to the prayers and sacred music that would have surrounded Hanukkah a hundred…
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Kwanzaa
This week on Three Tune Tuesday, Boneapart has a birthday with a lighthearted nod to the passage of time before shifting into a thoughtful, Kwanzaa-season exploration of two remarkable early spiritual recordings. After the celebratory 1911 Birthday Serenade, the episode moves into Marian…
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Thanksgiving
It's Thanksgiving in December! Come join Yulia and Boneapart as they spend this episode talking turkey!
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Mythology
In this week’s episode of Three Tune Tuesday, we dive into the realm of myth—where gods, spirits, and mortals blur together in music that’s anything but ordinary. Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld turns divine tragedy into biting satire, poking fun at power and pretension through a Parisian...
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Veterans Day, Remembrance Day, and Armistice Day
This week we're honouring our Veterans from many countries, with songs celebrating the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
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The Universe
This week on Three Tune Tuesday we go a little cosmic with “The Universe,” tracing a quiet arc from wonder to reach to trust. We open with “Underneath the Stars” (1915), a secular nocturne that lingers on night air and distant light—humankind gazing up and asking big questions. Then we lift off...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Every Tuesday, Boneapart and Yulia spin three songs from 78rpm records more than 100 years old: ragtime, early jazz, blues, vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, dance bands and forgotten hits from the 1900s to the 1920s.
Each episode follows a theme of the week, and every track is an acoustically recorded, public-domain gem played on period-appropriate phonographs and gramophones from a private collection of 78 rpm records. Along with the music come the stories: who made these recordings, what the world sounded like when they were new, and why these voices deserve to be remembered.
Whether you’re a record collector, a lover of old-time music and the Jazz Age, or just curious what people were dancing to a century ago, pull up a chair. Three tunes, every Tuesday, played the way they were first heard.
A Blind Skeleton production.
HOSTED BY
Boneapart and Yulia
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs have?
Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs currently has 133 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs about?
Every Tuesday, Boneapart and Yulia spin three songs from 78rpm records more than 100 years old: ragtime, early jazz, blues, vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, dance bands and forgotten hits from the 1900s to the 1920s. Each episode follows a theme of the week, and every track is an acoustically recorded,...
How often does Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs release new episodes?
Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs publishes regularly with 133 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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Who hosts Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs?
Blind Skeleton’s Three Tune Tuesday: 78rpm Records & Forgotten Songs is created and hosted by Boneapart and Yulia.
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