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Rock Art Rock
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I Got My Radio On
When Sam Cooke sang, “We’re havin’ a party, everybody’s swingin’, dancin’ to the music, on the radio,” it probably never occurred to him or anyone else back then that, 50 years on, “Having a Party” would be at the foundation of an enduring category of songs about listening to the radio.
Sure, a line like, “So listen, Mr. DJ, keep those records playing,” conjures the sound of a crackly radio and is loaded with nostalgia. But there’s more to it. Unlike playing a record at home, a song’s airing also somehow sanctifies it (just ask any musician about the moment they first heard their song on the radio and they’ll tell you about it in great detail). It seems radio’s transcendent properties are at their greatest when experienced by a person alone, late night, in the car or underneath the sheets with a transistor—that is, if you believe what the radio songs have to say. And when it comes to airplay, whether on the AM, the FM, or the BBC, from Wolfman Jack to John Peel, a song about the radio is radio-friendly, an idea that is not lost on artists, producers, and record labels. Of course, the radio, DJs, and their picks provide contact with a greater music community, though in our personalized, fragmented, and isolated listening worlds, those aspects of radio listening are all but forgotten. But before I get too teary-eyed, let’s get to the radio songs.
No surprise that the Originator, Bo Diddley, and big man Willie Dixon got the party started early: “You got your radio turned down too low—turn it up!” sang Bo in “You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover.” Diddley fanatics, the Strangeloves, fell in line with “Night Time”: “Turn your radio up so you can hear what I say / Now ya got me turned on baby.” But in these days of satellite radio, disc players, and iPods in the car, I’m wondering not only who’s going to write and sing about the radio, I want to know “Who Listens to the Radio?” (the name of a not-so-forgettable song by a forgettable band called the Sports). As a former college radio DJ (and record geek who hung around a little too long after graduation), I have a library of songs about the radio still at my fingertips. Songs that paid homage to the DJ or even criticized us, classics like the spitting “Radio, Radio” by Elvis Costello (and his lighter “Radio Sweetheart”), “Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio”, a tribute to it by the Ramones, and college radio’s anthem, “Left of the Dial” by the Replacements were all great ways to open an airshift. Need something funkier? “This Is Radio Clash.” Rootsy? Call in “Border Radio” by the Blasters. What about Two-Tone? “On My Radio” by the Selecter. And though I never much cared for “Video Killed the Radio Star”, especially when it became famous for being the first song broadcast on MTV, I notice I have a 45 of it in my stacks, so I must have spun it at some point.
Of course, most of those records were from the ’80s, as is my car that is equipped with a busted cassette player. I rely on the radio and my friendly neighborhood DJ to deliver the musical goods. Here in LA, there’s Jim Ladd at KLOS; according to popular wisdom, he’s “The Last DJ” Tom Petty sang about. I first heard him on a foggy drive back from San Diego at a key radio hour: The middle of the night. It was one of those radio experiences when you go, “How did he know?” (That we needed to hear Pink Floyd’ s “The Great Gig in the Sky” mixed seamlessly into “Have You Seen the Saucers” by Jefferson Starship, while navigating the road’s white lines in the misty morning?) There was something about the mix that made me forget it wasn’t just us on the highway, but a world of listeners with their own spaced-out circumstances who needed to hear that mix right then, too. The fact is, people need to hear a set like that only in the wee hours—and Ladd knows that; he’s tuned into his listener and he’s got the rap to match. When Neil Young’s Living With War was released, he went through it track by track, providing commentary after each song. Ladd carries the torch for old-school rock culture (with all that implies), though he also supports new music and that contributes to his iconoclastic, last man standing status in radioland: “There goes the last DJ, who plays what he wants to play…”
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6 Comments
I was the odd 6 yr old back in ‘72 that spent many an afternoon next to what was then a new clock radio listening to rock ‘n roll stations (and turning the dial way to the left in the early evenings to get our local PBS TV station so I could listen to Mr. Rogers Neighborhood). We didn’t have a TV growing up so it was all about the radio for me.
Now, it seems I don’t listen to the radio at all except for NPR on Sat/Sun mornings. And, with the exception of NPR on Sat/Sun mornings, I find that even when I do have the radio on … I’m not really listening. Even the radio shows I do actually listen to (Theme Time Radio Hour (one of the most inspiring shows you can listen to) and what has become a massive collection of old time radio dramas/comedies/variety shows) are downloads that I listen to at night or in my car on my mp3 player. No more curling up next to a clock radio in bed for hours of entertainment, enlightenment, education, inspiration, etc. For me, the clock radio has become purely functional; it wakes me up when I need to be awakened.
Anyway, thanks for the article. It’s a good one.
art
I’ll never forget, at age eight, hearing The Stones’ “Paint It Black” for the first time, via a cheap pocket transistor pressed to my ear. Clawing its way up like the undead through a landscape of mostly upbeat pop songs (The Beatles, Tommy James hondells, etc.), the tune both frightened and fascinated me. It was a first glimmer of something dark and sinister beneath the surface of the seemingly “normal” world.
Like Art, I spent much of my preteen and teenage years, alternately celebrating or sulking, listening to AM on my trusty Lloyd clock radio. I first heard “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” and Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” (amongst countless others) on the airwaves and often stayed up well past bedtime for DJ Clyde Clifford’s great late-night program, “Beaker Street.”
Decades later, I remain an avid listener of bluegrass, jazz, rock, and R and new, on the few local independent radio stations that survive – and still wake each morning to music on a bedside clock radio!
Denise, I love radio songs as well. My favorite is “Listen to the Radio” by Nanci Griffith which is similar to Joni’s song in its feminine point of view (without the subtext, I guess). What I like about the song is that it is about listening to the radio, particularly while driving and all of the memories and emotions, good and bad, that are evoked by the songs that you hear. I can’t count the number of road trip mixes I’ve made (cassettes, then cd’s and now playlists),yet, when a DJ surprises me with the perfect song for the moment and my mood, my affection for the radio is renewed.
Now if we just had more great radio stations…
RADIO truly saved my life when I was forbidden to watch TV when I was a preteen. And oh yeah, Radio On, Jonathan Richman was a fav anthem for a long time. I was beside myself when Bruce came out with Radio Nowhere and yea, when I first heard my band’s song on the radio, nearly ran a red light in delight and wonder! Thanks for another great article.
Listening to Yankee games at the beach with my grandfather.
Waking up to the sounds of Vic Damone on my mom’s clock radio.
Eavesdropping on my older sister and her friends listening to doo wop.
W-A-Beatle-C in New York.
The burgeoning sounds of free form radio turning me on to Circus Maximus’ “The Wind”. My God!
In my first car, a ‘55 Chevy, with my girlfriend, making out to Air Supply. Don’t hate me, she was hot and I was 17.
And on and on and on until I relocated to San Francisco and stumbled on to the early days of KALX and KUSF when the latter had the same dj on every day for hours. (Where are you now George Epileptic?) And yeah, Denise Sullivan always had a great show. I think I ran into her years later helping Mel Chaplowitz aka the Incredible Mystery DJ stuff Mutants singles into their sleeves. If that her she was also hot. I guess I shouldn’t say that, but I’ve never forgotten it. (Don’t worry Denise, I’m not a stalker and I’m too old for you anyway.) But yeah, the radio. When I was kid my aforementioned grandfather and me would make these crystal radios and wrap the antenna around the heat pipe to get reception.
While I continue to listen to new stuff I realize there is so much older material I get turned onto, much of it from the radio, stuff I haven’t heard that if I listened to it non stop there wouldn’t be enough time in my life to hear it all. I’d be a radically different person without the radio. Yeah so many of us would, right?
Hey time marches on. Whaddaya gonna do?
Nice article…….I used to listen to John Peel when he hosted Nightride with the radio close to my ear and the sheets around my head as I fell asleep listening to the Third Ear Band while plotting my escape from school days