What will we tell future generations about “the
radio”? My grandchildren will have a hard time understanding the extent to
which radio stations influenced my childhood and teenage years. We scooped the
radio waves out of the air with nothing more than a transistor receiver that
ran on a nine-volt battery; or with the large cabinet radio in the living room.
We could also listen to radio stations in our cars and we dreamed about the
places from which the music came. As a boy I remember using a very fine touch
to tune in 1400 CFUN all the way from Vancouver, BC. There were only certain
hours, after dark, that this would work and to a kid on a small farm in Central
Alberta, Vancouver was one of the most exotic places I could imagine. The radio
station played a lot of the band Chilliwack,
which suited me fine, and the DJs sounded more sophisticated than those in Red
Deer or Calgary. All of the radio stations in a particular area played approximately
40 songs throughout the day. The 40 songs would change from month to month but
some stuck around for a while. We learned the lyrics to all 40
so we could sing along any time that they came on. It usually took me about two
listens to memorize a song and I still have many of those lyrics locked away in
my cranium where they sometimes get in the way of more important pieces of
information.

It is hard to comprehend, and harder still
to explain, what a profound influence these songs had upon the children of the
sixties, seventies, and eighties. We would sing a single line and everyone in
the room could fill in the next words of the song. The attitudes and
consciousness expressed in the radio hits were absorbed into our psyches and we
were changed without even knowing we were being influenced. My first memories
of life, when my infant consciousness was awakening, are forever connected to
songs that I heard played on the radio. My uncle’s car radio playing “Ring of
Fire,” by Johnny Cash, is etched eternally on my mind and I can still see Uncle Ray standing there with the hood up, tinkering with the carburetor. I have been
forever influenced by the Radio.
Steep
Canyon Rangers
, a bluegrass band from Asheville,
North Carolina has recorded, “Radio,”  a
song that captures the way in which the radio has influenced generations of
singers, musicians, and writers. Written by banjoist, Graham Sharp, the song is
the first single and the inspiration for the album title produced by Jerry
Douglas of Union Station.
Radio
I really dug your double-tape deck
Pressing dead flowers
For hours with you
Up in your bedroom
Beneath that Waterloo sunset so fine
Riding home from Sunday School
Casey Kasem told me
I’d find her one day
I believed, I believed
In every word he said
Cause I was born to the rhythm
Rocked in the bosom
Raised on the sound of the Radio
And when I want to get back
I turn it up loud and I’m ready to go
We never had to look around, look around
The sound was everywhere
And you’d call me on the phone
Saying look what I found
The skeleton key made just for you
Songs were the dark sunglasses
And the telescopes we were looking
through
And the open door that we stumbled through
And we crawled, and we ran
And we just, we just flew
Cause I was born to the rhythm
Rocked in the bosom
Raised on the sound of the Radio
And when I want to get back
I turn it up loud and I’m ready to go
On the radio (on the radio)
On the radio (on the radio)
On the radio (on the radio)
On the radio (I’m on the radio)
Cause I was born to the rhythm
Rocked in the bosom
Raised on the sound of the Radio
And when I want to get back

I get back 

Cause I was born to the rhythm
Rocked in the bosom
Raised on the sound of the Radio
And when I want to get back
I turn it up loud and I’m ready to go
On the radio
On the radio

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