Radio, Radio: What Burbank Listened To

Yesterday, while driving to work, the Rod Stewart song "You're in My Heart" came on. I was about to change it, but for pure nostalgia's sake, I left it on.









There's that part in the song when Rod sings, "You're a rhapsody, a comedy/
You're a symphony and a play..." Well, as a kid, I had always thought he was saying, "You're a wrapped sardine." Which, of course, makes no sense. But a lot of things didn't make sense to me when I was a kid. Anyway, yesterday, I began thinking about all the other lyrics I had misheard. (Remember: We couldn't Google song lyrics. The best we could do was buy a copy of the magazine Song Lyrics or Hit Parader).




My family moved around quite a bit when I was kid. We lived in the apartments behind House of Camping, an apartment around 79th and Normandy, the condos over around 77th and Austin, and then, finally, a house in the 82nd block of Rutherford. For some reason, my memories of listening to the radio are most strongly connected to the apartment on 79th Street, when I was in third and fourth grades. I listened to WLS. I believe Bob Sirott may have been on WLS back then, but I distinctly remember listening to Larry Lujack.

To give you a sense of the times...if I wanted to tape a song, which I frequently did, I would hold a bulky cassette recorder up to the radio and then press down both the play and red record buttons. The microphone, of course, picked up every sound: me breathing, my mother calling for me, car horns outside. In 1973, 45s were about fifty cents each; occasionally, you'd find a three-for-a-dollar special. In grade school, I gauged pretty much all inflation by the price of a 45.

Every week, for several years, I would go with my mother to Kmart so that I could pick up the most recent Top Forty list. As you'll see below, the Top Forty songs would be listed on the right; the top-selling albums on the right. A D.J. was always featured on the sheet as well. A thrill was seeing what color that week's list would be. (Yes, it was the early '70s. Before videotapes, even. Before cable. Before video games. It didn't take much to thrill me back then.)



In high school, I woke up in the mornings to "Animal Stories," the irreverent show that starred Uncle Larry (Lujack) and Li'l Tommy (Edwards). (I may even have owned an "Animal Stories" album, come to think of it.) Meanwhile, The Loop was piped into the lunchroom at Reavis, and it was there, my freshman year, that I heard about the death of Led Zepplin's drummer, John Bonham.



One summer when I returned home from college, I took a job working in a small electronics company, where I was in charge of Shipping and Receiving. This was 1985 or '86. A guy I worked with -- Joe -- was in charge of the radio, and so we listened all morning to Steve Dahl, which was fine, but then I had to listen to some Easy Listening station all afternoon, which wasn't fine. (Every frickin' day, I would hear Neil Diamond's cheesy E.T. tribute, "Heartlight," a song that still inspires me to want to smash the radio.)



I've barely touched on music here, so I'm sure I'll be coming back to it often, but in the meantime, tell me what station you listened to?
What lyrics did you hear wrong?
And what other major radio events do you remember? (Did anyone go to Disco Demolition?)