The Midnighters, formerly the Royals, on a Federal reissue from the early 1970s with the follow up to their big hit Work With Me Annie, because, in their own words, "That's what happens when the gettin' gets good". Not any more it don't; because we now have the Pill. 

When the birth control pill was introduced in 1960, it was seen as a major medical achievement that rewrote the future of women and family life. For the first time in history, it became possible for a woman to safely and effectively control childbearing by taking a pill and within two years, approximately 1.2 million women were using it. It has been credited with launching the women's movement, fuelling the, largely mythical, wild and free times of the 1960s, and as reforming the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical in the late-1960s condemning all forms of artificial birth control – most especially the Pill. The ability for the people to control population is very much a thorn in the side of power, historically the religions need ignorant child bearing women to constantly renew their brainwashed flock, the military need a constant supply of cannon fodder for their wars and the capitalists needed an ever growing multitude of consumers. Although contraceptive techniques had been known in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the modern movement for birth control began in Great Britain, where the writings of Thomas Robert Malthus stirred interest in the problem of overpopulation. By the 1870s a wide variety of birth control devices were available in English and American pharmacies, including rubber condoms. In England in 1877, Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh were tried for selling The Fruits of Philosophy, a pamphlet on contraceptive methods, written in 1832 by an American, Charles Knowlton; the state (the very thing people think protects them)  has always been the agency for the implementation of the precepts of the above mentioned forms of power. In 1878 the first birth control clinic was founded in Amsterdam by Aletta Jacobs. The first U.S. birth control clinic, opened (1916) by Margaret Sanger in Brooklyn, N.Y., was closed by the police; she received a 30-day jail sentence. She later permanently established a clinic in New York City in 1923. In Great Britain the Malthusian League, aided by Marie Stopes, established a birth control clinic in London in 1921. Concern in over declining populations has increased in recent years in certain Western European countries and Russia. Among religious bodies, the Roman Catholic Church still openly provides the main opposition to the birth control movement, John Paul II reaffirmed this stance in encyclicals. The continuing use of birth control used by the developed countries in spite of opposition has lead to the mass immigration patterns towards the developed world that are actively encouraged by Church, State, and Capitalism, as in the 21st century falling birth rates and an aging population (they don't consume so much) means that many more consumers (of goods but increasingly of services) are needed to keep the rich and the poor in their respective places. Today the pill is being superseded by newer methods like the birth control patch, Ortho Evra, on sale in Canada, and a birth control computer:

 Now you know why they-don't-make-songs-like-that-anymore.

Both Work With Me Annie and Annie Had A Baby inspired the usual answer records and imitations, and even The Midnighters kept the ball rolling with Annie's Aunt Fannie. Etta James' Roll With Me Henry was one such an answer record, but the prize for the most outrageous recording must go to The Midnights (that's not The Midnighters) with Annie Pulled A Hum-Bug a song implying that the baby is not the fathers. The record is so similar to Annie Had A Baby that there had to be a disclaimer printed on the label (see below) stating that the record was "Not to be confused with The Midnighters recording" ! Oh no.

ANNIE PULLED A HUM-BUG * THE MIDNIGHTS * MUSIC CITY 746 * USA

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