FN Radio
This is all about songs. Songs are magic!
"Rock classics on the radio to clear my mind." - The Knife Rock Classics
Somewhere between Atoka and Stringtown, Oklahoma towns both, there's a dead zone where the only radio options are three country stations, each playing either the latest Tim McGraw song or Honky Tonk Buh Don Guh Donk, and a Catholic talk station. I opted for the last option and learned, for instance, that I should "be [myself]" first and foremost. They started talking about Guttenberg and, since I feared they would soon transition to the liturgical merits of Three Men and a Baby (remember? It has a ghost!), I quickly switched stations. This is how I ended up listening to Honky Tonk Badongadonk for the eighth time in my seven hour journey. A song with a name I can't even spell should be much cooler (unless it's by Sigur Rós).
Incidentally, that song was completely off my radar except a couple people on Live Journal mentioned it (xladyx & annachristina if you want to browse their back catalogue); now I've mentioned it too, creating a sinister new meme to form one more connection in the chrysalis internet mind that will one day attain sentience and destroy us all.
I also heard Manfred Mann's Blinded By the Light approximately six times on my journey which is about one million times too many. That song will always haunt my life because it taught me the wrong way to say "deuce," leading to more embarrassing social situations than puberty and alcohol combined. Somewhere in a dark closet, Manfred Mann sits smoking dehydrated banana peels and waiting for me; when I stumble into it while searching for a mop or spare headlight, he'll sinisterly hiss "Welcome, my son. Welcome to the end of all that is good!"
Strangely, I heard Pearl Jam's Better Man (which I always listen to so I can sing along with "She lies and says she's in love with him; cantfindabettahman!") five times on the way to Austin (oh yeah, I went to Austin) but no times on the way back. Here we'll touch on a minor point of possible interest: Why on earth did I listen to the radio during my fifteen and one half hours of driving? Initially, I was only going to listen to it on the way down so I'd have a bonus treat on the return slog to Tulsa; however, while in Austin, I got to listen to the awesomeness that is 100.1 FM and Alex Jones going crazy nuts about everything from the Bohemian Grove (I just popped up on a list somewhere) to his dentist father being offered a job building cyborgs. MAXIMUM YES. It made me think, "What if I am missing other radio awesomeness on my drive back?" Since I used quotation marks there, I guess I thought this aloud.
For once, my brain paid off though. Somewhere between Waco and Dallas, I caught Love Hurts en Español. I think they were saying "Our love... it hurts" instead of
"love hurts... love hurts," but it was still another example of the triumph of the human spirit. That carried me through all the talk radio and bad songs I could ever encounter in one trip; it didn't hurt that I also caught Thank God I'm a Country Boy. "Life ain't nuthin' but a funny, funny riddle" indeed.
Now that I'm back in my musically sequestered home, I miss the sheer quantity and badness of what's out there. Sure, I can pull up all manner of random songs on demand that I want to listen to, but, somewhere, a sad DJ wants to spin me a cut that includes a lyric along the lines of "I never leave the sidewalk because of you!" I say to that DJ, "Jeff, I didn't even listen to that song when my only other option was the pastor Alistair Reynold telling me that my kids were galleons of sin on the ocean of being allowed to do stuff."
"Rock classics on the radio to clear my mind." - The Knife Rock Classics
Somewhere between Atoka and Stringtown, Oklahoma towns both, there's a dead zone where the only radio options are three country stations, each playing either the latest Tim McGraw song or Honky Tonk Buh Don Guh Donk, and a Catholic talk station. I opted for the last option and learned, for instance, that I should "be [myself]" first and foremost. They started talking about Guttenberg and, since I feared they would soon transition to the liturgical merits of Three Men and a Baby (remember? It has a ghost!), I quickly switched stations. This is how I ended up listening to Honky Tonk Badongadonk for the eighth time in my seven hour journey. A song with a name I can't even spell should be much cooler (unless it's by Sigur Rós).
Incidentally, that song was completely off my radar except a couple people on Live Journal mentioned it (xladyx & annachristina if you want to browse their back catalogue); now I've mentioned it too, creating a sinister new meme to form one more connection in the chrysalis internet mind that will one day attain sentience and destroy us all.
I also heard Manfred Mann's Blinded By the Light approximately six times on my journey which is about one million times too many. That song will always haunt my life because it taught me the wrong way to say "deuce," leading to more embarrassing social situations than puberty and alcohol combined. Somewhere in a dark closet, Manfred Mann sits smoking dehydrated banana peels and waiting for me; when I stumble into it while searching for a mop or spare headlight, he'll sinisterly hiss "Welcome, my son. Welcome to the end of all that is good!"
Strangely, I heard Pearl Jam's Better Man (which I always listen to so I can sing along with "She lies and says she's in love with him; cantfindabettahman!") five times on the way to Austin (oh yeah, I went to Austin) but no times on the way back. Here we'll touch on a minor point of possible interest: Why on earth did I listen to the radio during my fifteen and one half hours of driving? Initially, I was only going to listen to it on the way down so I'd have a bonus treat on the return slog to Tulsa; however, while in Austin, I got to listen to the awesomeness that is 100.1 FM and Alex Jones going crazy nuts about everything from the Bohemian Grove (I just popped up on a list somewhere) to his dentist father being offered a job building cyborgs. MAXIMUM YES. It made me think, "What if I am missing other radio awesomeness on my drive back?" Since I used quotation marks there, I guess I thought this aloud.
For once, my brain paid off though. Somewhere between Waco and Dallas, I caught Love Hurts en Español. I think they were saying "Our love... it hurts" instead of
"love hurts... love hurts," but it was still another example of the triumph of the human spirit. That carried me through all the talk radio and bad songs I could ever encounter in one trip; it didn't hurt that I also caught Thank God I'm a Country Boy. "Life ain't nuthin' but a funny, funny riddle" indeed.
Now that I'm back in my musically sequestered home, I miss the sheer quantity and badness of what's out there. Sure, I can pull up all manner of random songs on demand that I want to listen to, but, somewhere, a sad DJ wants to spin me a cut that includes a lyric along the lines of "I never leave the sidewalk because of you!" I say to that DJ, "Jeff, I didn't even listen to that song when my only other option was the pastor Alistair Reynold telling me that my kids were galleons of sin on the ocean of being allowed to do stuff."