"Uses the piano as an instrument of torture."  From "On Grown-Up Babies and Other Human Phenomena" in Cassell's, 1888.

Fifty-five years before the Bowie song, a phonograph plays "Fame."  From Die Muskete, 1920.

From The Pyrenees by Henry George Blackburn, 1867.

From the Arthur and Fritz Kahn Collection, courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute Archives.

The Black Cat, from March, 1896.

Piano for the bedridden, 1935.

"Woman with a rabbit's head listening to a man with a dog's head playing a horn."  Circa 1890.

An autoharp puts lions to sleep, from c. 1890.

The piano playing duck (not shown).  Date uncertain.

Here's a precursor to the Broadway production A Little Night Music (1973), from Lives of the Hunted by Ernest Seton-Thompson, 1901.

Here's a precursor to "[How Do You Solve a Problem Like] Maria" in The Sound of Music: "How do you find a word that means Maria?  A flibbertijibbet!  A will-o'-the wisp!  A clown!"  The caption reads, "They call you by a name that makes me shudder when I hear it."  From English Illustrated, 1890.

Here's a precursor to the amateur singing shows like Idol and The Voice.  The caption reads, "Then all at once, without assistance, the afflicted creature found relief.  And since then the Tune's been all over everywhere upside down and downside upmost, besides other ways."  From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1875.

Here's the 4 a.m. "Egg Song" from Cartoons Magazine, 1917.  We didn't make a recording of this, as our exclusive recording of the sound of "turtle heaven" didn't exactly set the world on fire.

From My Odd Little Folk by Malcom Douglas, 1893.

From Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina, 1904.