Radio Rapture

A meme from Music Memoirs:

Is radio even necessary anymore? (elaborate)
Yes, yes! It is like a friend choosing songs for you, a sort of real-time mix. Sure you can lock yourself away into your mp3 player or chain yourself to the songs stored on your hard drive, but listening to the radio brings in the new, the ones you may not have chosen to listen to. The old ones, that nostalgic ones and the just released, the ones the preteens are currently bobbing their heads to. All that good stuff. Plus there's always great radio personalities. I like the friendly voices of the 101.1 CBS FM DJs, like fun uncles :) I like the cool slightly older than you, like older siblings or a year or two above you in high school, snark and man, this rocks! sort of DJs of Q104.3. Ahh...

What song would make you expire from pleasure if you actually heard it on the radio?
I wanted to write a post about this, specifically which songs I first heard on the radio and was immediately, irrevocably captivated. But let me see... if I actually heard ... oh man, way too many. I plead guilty!! :)

What is the most enjoyable thing you can think of about the radio?
Pretty much everything :) Even the radio commercials, or the random news stories, the weather, I love all that. I love the Osgood file when I used to hear it. I like hearing when my dad listens to financial advice from this husband and wife team on the radio. I like when he later listens to medical problems of the elderly which are answered by this old wizened voice. I like the bombastic clashing voices of the futbol commentators on Futbol en Primera, discussing Mexican soccer league, MLS, eliminatorias. I like Aflac commercials. I like Mandatory Monday Night Metallica. I like NPR editorials and concerts and readings. I like getting the Led out. I like getting excited if they're giving away tickets for things I would not normally attend and I fantasize that I will call up and win and go to Ricky Martin or CSNY or Beatlemania concerts. I want to be the 25th caller!!! I WANT MY RADIO!!!!

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Ahem. More on radio. Here are some short radio vignettes of me and my ears and soundwaves reaching them:

• George Harrison's Awaiting On You All: I briefly mentioned this before. But I heard this on 104.3 and the lyrics grabbed me. Who could be saying "don't need a church house, don't need a temple"?? Who was this strange artist? It sounded so radical to me, even though it later went into say all you need is Jesus. And as many of the stations do, especially with older songs, they don't announce who it is, assuming the audience will know. So I turned to trusty google and found out it was George Harrison. I love this song.
  
• Supertramp's The Logical Song: For the longest time I thought this was Rush, because the voice reminded me of Geddy Lee's. The lyrics also caught me here, the echoing words, rhyming, flowing. The way it starts off so sweetly and keeps that tune but goes on to describe becoming jaded. The sax!
  
• The Four Seasons' Dawn (Go Away): Another one where the lyrics caught me right away, I remember listening to this on 101.1 and leaning in close to the speakers to catch all the words. And though it's a bit melodramatic, I bought it hook, line and sinker. A boy saying that the girl he loves is better off with a richer man. How could he say such things? What a martyr! "I want you to think what your family would say / think what you're throwing away / Now think what the future would be / with a poor boy like me" makes me all !!!!
  
• Don McLean's American Pie: A long long time ago... actually maybe a few years ago there was this car commercial with a girl sitting outside her car while her boyfriend was singing to a song. After a bit, he stepped out. She said he was a dork. Well, I am that dork. Everytime I hear this song on the radio I have to stick it out and mouth/sing aloud to every gosh darn lyric, pause, note. One of my favorite lines is "Do you believe in rock ’n roll? / Can music save your mortal soul? And can you teach me how to dance real slow?" Total hearts!
  
• Beyonce's Crazy In Love: I was trying to catch up to what the kids were listening to, so I would sometimes stand with a headset on and hands at the ready on a cassette deck with a blank tape inside, waiting to tape my selections. The crazy static and lightning and whatever other effects they use to introduce a world premiere passed and suddenly this song came on. It had me at the first "uh oh." I was so psyched to have it on a tape that i could play over and over again right away.
  
• Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant Masacree: More on this in the next post.
  

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I bought Dave Gahan's new album Hourglass, whose single "Kingdom" I like so much! I don't usually buy songs based on one song, but this is the lead singer of Depeche Mode and he's actually going to be signing this CD and I got a wristband for the event which is one block from my workplace! SCORE! Too bad I am missing the instore performance at the Apple store because...

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I'm going to the Morrissey show tonight! ZOMG! I hope I don't get bit! :I