Flashback: October 26, 1975

The Signal Begins

It’s October 1975. The Vietnam War has ended, the economy is shaky, and New York City feels like the center of the universe…gritty, creative, and alive. The country is trying to find its footing again, rebuilding its identity one song, one sitcom, and one sketch at a time.

Cable TV is barely a rumor, most homes have one phone attached to the wall, and the closest thing to “going viral” is a catchphrase from a late-night show. Pop culture is shifting, and so is America’s mood, a blend of swagger and exhaustion, hope and hangover. The culture that GenX would grow up on is just starting to find its frequency.

We were living in the overlap: disco meeting rock, variety shows giving way to sketch comedy, and the old guard handing over the mic to something entirely new. The charts were more diverse, the humor edgier, and staying sharp meant keeping pace with a world that was starting to move faster than ever.

And somewhere in the Bronx, DJs were looping breaks and building a sound that would one day define a generation. The world didn’t know it yet, but hip hop’s heartbeat had already started.

So cue the vinyl, dim the lights, and dive in.

This Mixtape Memory Lane is sponsored by 50 Ways to Keep Your Lover.

Mixtape Memory Lane 

🎧 “Miracles” – Jefferson Starship

Sensual and sprawling, “Miracles” drifted across the airwaves with that dreamy California sound that defined mid-70s FM radio. It wasn’t just a love song, it was an atmosphere.

🎧 “Island Girl” – Elton John

Elton was at his glittering peak in 1975, and “Island Girl” showed just how far pop could travel. Funky, tropical, and instantly recognizable, it bridged the gap between glam and disco, setting the tone for the genre-bending 80s to come.

🎧 “They Just Can’t Stop It (Games People Play)” – The Spinners

Smooth, confident, and impossibly catchy, this song blended soul and pop in that effortless 70s way. The Spinners delivered harmonies that felt like velvet and rhythm that made it impossible to sit still, an early preview of the R&B polish that would shape GenX slow jams.

🎧 “Who Loves You” – The Four Seasons

By 1975, The Four Seasons had traded their doo-wop roots for disco shimmer, and it worked. “Who Loves You” brought their harmonies into a new era, proving that even legacy acts could evolve.

🎧 “Lyin’ Eyes” – Eagles

With its steady pace and bittersweet story, “Lyin’ Eyes” captured the weary elegance of 70s America. The Eagles had a way of turning quiet heartbreak into poetry, and those harmonies would echo through radio playlists for decades to come.

🎧 “Fly, Robin, Fly” – Silver Convention

Three words, one groove. This hypnotic disco anthem turned simplicity into art and rhythm into escape. It was sleek, and futuristic in its own way…like a warm-up act for the synth-driven sound that would later define the 80s dance floor.

👆 Watch the full throwback playlist on YouTube Music.

Screen Time Rewind 

Theaters in October 1975 were still riding the wave of a phenomenon. Jaws had redefined moviegoing that summer, becoming the first film to earn over $100 million at the box office and, in the process, inventing the modern blockbuster.

Meanwhile, buzz was building around One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The film wouldn’t open until November, but word was already spreading about Jack Nicholson’s performance as R.P. McMurphy, the wisecracking rebel taking on the system, and the steely Nurse Ratched. You could feel it coming: another film that would define the decade.

And then there was The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which had just arrived in September. At first, audiences didn’t know what to make of it—part musical, part sci-fi spoof, all chaos—but the seeds of a cult were being planted.

On television, the fall season was in full swing.  All in the Family still ruled CBS, with Archie Bunker’s bluster and ignorance somehow bringing families together for uncomfortable, necessary laughter.

The Jeffersons, Norman Lear’s bold spin-off, was hitting its stride, showing America what upward mobility looked like from a Black perspective and doing it with humor that still landed.

Welcome Back, Kotter was the new kid on the block, having premiered just a month earlier. America met the Sweathogs, and a young John Travolta became an overnight star as Vinnie Barbarino. By Halloween, “Up your nose with a rubber hose” was echoing through school hallways everywhere.

Meanwhile, Barney Miller was proving that not all cop shows needed sirens and shootouts. Set mostly in one detective’s office, it relied on wit, wordplay, and human absurdity…a quiet revolution in sitcom writing.

Then came October 11, 1975. Saturday Night Live premiered, and everything changed. Late-night TV would never be the same again. See more in our Visual Feature section.

This Life Reboot is sponsored by La’Merde Designs apparel.

Life Reboot: Mind

Staying Sharp in a No-Filter World

October 1975 was the last gasp before information overload became permanent. We had three TV networks, AM/FM radio, newspapers, and magazines…that was it.

If you wanted to know something, you had to actively seek it out, remember it, or it was gone. Your brain was your hard drive because there was no cloud, no Google, no way to instantly verify if that trivia your uncle spouted at Thanksgiving was actually true.

We memorized phone numbers, had to know directions, and carried knowledge in our heads because there was nowhere else to store it. Mental sharpness wasn't optional…it was survival.

Fast forward to now, and our brains are drowning. Every notification is a derailment. Every scroll is a dopamine hit. Every unanswered question gets immediately Googled, robbing us of the cognitive wrestling that builds memory. We've outsourced our mental filing system to devices that make us simultaneously connected and cognitively lazy.

In 1975, boredom forced creativity. Silence forced thought. Now, we panic if we're alone with our brains for more than thirty seconds. The constant input isn't making us smarter…it's making us scattered, reactive, and incapable of deep focus.

This week’s challenge:

• Create friction for your attention. Your phone wants you addicted, so treat it like the slot machine it is. Turn off all non-essential notifications….yes, all of them. Put your phone in another room when you're working, eating, or trying to think. Make reaching for it inconvenient enough that you have to decide if it's actually worth it.

• Boredom is not the enemy. Boredom is where creativity lives. Read something longer than a tweet. Pick up an actual book, a long-form article, something that requires sustained attention for more than 90 seconds. Your brain is a muscle, and doom-scrolling is the equivalent of only doing bicep curls with your left arm.

• Build your attention span back deliberately, the same way you'd train for a race. Start with 20 minutes of uninterrupted reading and work your way up. Let yourself not know things immediately. Next time a question pops into your head, sit with it. Wonder about it. Let your brain try to figure it out before you Google. The act of retrieval, that mental filing through your memory, is what strengthens neural pathways.

When you immediately outsource every answer to your phone, you're training your brain that it doesn't need to remember anything, and over time, it won't. The irony is rich: in 1975, we had limited access to information but sharp minds capable of retaining it.

Now we have infinite information and minds like sieves. Maybe the answer isn't to know everything…it's to be capable of thinking clearly about anything. That requires defending your attention like it's the most valuable thing you own, because it is.

Visual Feature: From the Archives

Saturday Night Live Premieres on NBC

When Saturday Night Live debuted on October 11, 1975, no one knew it would become a pop-culture institution. George Carlin hosted, musical guests included Janis Ian and Billy Preston. The original cast—Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi—introduced a new kind of comedy: live, chaotic, and fearless.

It wasn’t just a show; it was a mirror. SNL reflected the country’s absurdities and contradictions in real time. And for the young GenXers who’d grow up watching its reruns, the humor, the rebellion, and the music all became part of our DNA.

Life Reboot is sponsored by La’Merde Designs.

Mixtape Memory Lane is sponsored by 50 Ways to Keep Your Lover.

The Echo Remains

The mid-70s were the signal. The energy, irreverence, and experimentation of 1975 would grow into the culture we claim as our own. From the sarcasm of SNL to the harmonies of the Eagles, this was the spark that lit the fuse. Before MTV, before memes, before the noise, there was the signal. And we’re still hearing its echo.

Fifty years later, October 1975 feels like the moment everything started humming in tune. We watched Jaws redefine moviegoing, memorized Vinnie Barbarino’s catchphrases, and had no idea that late-night sketch comedy would turn into a national ritual.

Our brains held everything because there was nowhere else to put it—phone numbers, directions, lyrics, trivia—all stored in mental filing cabinets we actually used. Maybe that’s what October 1975 keeps reminding us: staying sharp isn’t about consuming more, it’s about clearing the noise. In a world that now screams for our attention every second, defending your focus isn’t self-care. It’s survival.

The live, unpolished, imperfect moment happening right in front of you…that’s where the real magic still lives. The sound that started with turntables in a Bronx community room became the soundtrack of GenX life. The signal began quietly, but the echo still shakes the walls.

Until next week, “Good night, John-Boy.”