Paper Boy

Artist: Roy Orbison

Released: 1959

Lyrical relic: Paper boy

I walk down to the blue side of town 
Where there's no happiness, no joy 
Down at the end of a long dark street 
I saw a little paper boy 

Paper boy paper boy 
I've got bad news for you 
Paper boy paper boy 
Me and my baby are through 

Full lyrics

What do Wayne Gretzky, Warren Buffet and Martin Luther King Jr. have in common? They were all paper boys — kids who delivered printed newspapers. If you grew up before the new millennium, you might not have seen the paper boy too often, but you may have heard the clunk of his delivery on your doorstep.

In America, paper boys allegedly got their start back in 1833, with the hire of 10-year old named Barney Flaherty. The early paper boys like Barney operated independently, buying the papers from the publishers as a lot. They would either hawk them from street corners or roam neighborhoods trying to sell them.

The esteemed job of hurling rolled-up newspapers to doormat targets would eventually become many a proud boy’s initiation into paid employment. Often performed while riding his bicycle, this involved some highly-skilled coordination.

As the name implies, girls were not originally allowed to deliver newspapers. It’s not clear when they started to want in on the action, but they were certainly delivering papers in the 80s . “Paper Girls” is a 2022 Amazon series that imagines a group of friends who all have paper routes in 1988.

While the morning paper could be delivered very early before school started, newspapers often had afternoon or evening editions which were more convenient for kids to deliver after school. The disappearance of these later editions was one of the factors that led to the decline of the news boy.

By 1987, the LA Times was already reporting a steady decline in the number of paper boys/girls, long before the printed newspaper was set on its course for extinction. By the mid-1990s, many of these paper routes were taken over by “newspaper carriers” — adults flinging out papers from their cars.

Many successful adults credit their early newspaper delivery jobs as being a formative experience. The Newspaper Carrier Hall of Fame was established in 1960 by the International Circulation Managers Association to recognize former newspaper carriers who have achieved national prominence.

Today, a 10 year-old kid like Barney is very unlikely to have ever had the thrill of getting his fingers smudged with newsprint, let alone partaking in the rite of passage that delivering newspapers was to many boys. Roy Orbison may be lamenting the fact that he and his baby “are through”, but the demise of the paper boy may very well be considered just as sad.