Things were musically more interesting back in the day, when DJs actually spun records, when they needed to have actual skill to transition between songs and segments, when a knowledge of both music and sound equipment was required for the job. Sure, listeners would hear irritating songs as often as they’d learn about some new and exciting band or style, but that was the trade-off. I really didn’t want to rant on the death of radio, however, as I have been made happy by turning off my radio and grooving instead to Radio Paradise, SomaFM and Pandora. I really wanted to share a discovery (read: personal ability to find meaning where there is none).
On this blog, I have a list of songs that make me want to pee faster when I hear them when I am in the restroom at work. (Someone thought it a fine idea to put a radio in our bathroom, ostensibly to give us a soundtrack to do girls’ room things to.) For some reason, occasionally a song will be playing that disturbs me measurably more than simply having a soundtrack does, and I add it to the list.
Today, however, I had a different reaction to what was playing while I peed: Come Sail Away by Styx is a longer-than-average song, and I couldn’t help but think that — at least back before pre-recorded blocks of song — it would have been used to give the DJ the chance to relieve his bladder. In effect, I felt a kind of kinship at the thought of peeing while someone else, briefly escaping from their booth (which, in my head will always look like the studio at WKRP), also peed. I look forward, now, to hearing any of these or these songs and once again bonding with my (childhood memory of a) local DJ.
