I’m Not Gonna Miss You When You’re Gone
Polystyrene Cups and the Beginning of the End of the Throwaway Society
“When I’m gone, when I’m gone.
You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.”
— “You’re Gonna Miss Me” (aka “The Cups Song”)
A.P. Carter, Luisa Gerstein, Heloise Tunstall-Behrens
A.P. Carter — one of the founders of country music, uncle of June Carter, in-law of Johnny Cash — probably didn’t have beverage containers in mind when he composed the song “You’re Gonna Miss Me.”
But, five years ago this month and 82 years after he wrote it, his tune became a Top 10 hit on the Billboard charts — thanks to a viral music video starring an ordinary cup.
The video, a clip from the movie “Pitch Perfect”, features Anna Kendrick singing the first half of Carter’s song, using as percussion the type of cup you’d find at a sorority party or a picnic.
The performance was part of a long history of beverage containers serving as musical instruments.
Peruvians started crafting ceramic “whistling bottles” 2,500 years ago. African-Americans began using stone or glass jugs to mimic trombones and sousaphones in the early 1900s (hence, the term “jug bands”). And, while A.P. Carter sang about “two bottles of whiskey,” Robert Johnson and fellow Delta blues guitarists were creating a new sound by sliding broken bottles across their strings.
But there’s one notable exception to the “musical beverage container” rule: cups made out of polystyrene, better known as “Styrofoam.” (Though I should note that Styrofoam is a brand name, and many companies make polystyrene cups.)
Moving such cups across a blackboard can yield a horrifying screech that some avant-garde critics might call music.
But, for the rest of us, it’s yet another reason that polystyrene cups deserve their reputation as the avatar of the Throwaway Society.
When polystyrene cups were introduced in 1960, there was an argument — albeit a bad one — that the convenience, portability, and mass producibility of polystyrene cups made them a net plus for a world struggling to adequately feed, clothe, and shelter billions.
But, today, zillions of cups and a revolutionary gain in world living standards later, that argument no longer holds water. Plenty of other vessels for thirst-slaking don’t take 300+ years to decompose, can be reused and recycled, and don’t choke sea turtles and robins.
The costs to wildlife alone far, far outweigh the infinitesimal advantage of using an easy-to-toss, impossible-to-get-rid-of container.
As one of the first symbols of the Throwaway Society, it’s altogether fitting that it be one of the first casualties of the effort to destroy that mindset.
I’m not gonna miss them when they’re gone.
A.P. Carter died in the same year that polystyrene cups hit the market.
Had he lived, I think he would have been appalled by them. His philosophy was grounded in the countryside he so loved. As he wrote, in the second verse of “I’m Gonna Miss You,”
“I got my ticket for the long way run,
The one with the prettiest of views
It’s got mountains
It’s got rivers
It’s got sights to give you shivers”
I’ll miss that world if it’s ever gone.
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For more information about efforts to ban polystyrene cups from restaurants, check the website for Environment America’s Wildlife Over Waste campaign.
