Free as the breeze

"Whistlin’ tunes that you know and love so."

Child of the 1970s, I heard much from the AM radio. One, perhaps two small speakers in the dashboard those days. Two knobs, on/off volume left and tuner right, either side of a frequency dial: 5 up to 16 (500 KHZ to 1600 KHZ), with buttons lined underneath to move the indicator fast to the favorite station. There was soon enough the FM scale as well on the dial (88 MHZ to 108 MHZ), and the fidelity started increasing over the free air towards better autos with better speakers into the 1980s. It was great to still hear disc-jockeys sling records over the air by choice, maybe answering a listener and playing a request. It was personal then, long before the corporate jukes took over and made repeat tapes of the same songs, kicking the personal off the microphone so they could blare more advertising. By that time we had cassettes too in the dash -lest we not forget the 8-track monster decks that had to be under the dash- and we were allowed to play our own music on the road. Commercial-free listening with deep tracks to the entire album (as long as you toted them around everywhere). It all seemed to just commercialize by 1980: so many things (mr tape deck started it all) to buy just to play music in the car. Saving Hi-Fidelity for the special places we drove to, like the concerts or the dude with the biggest home stereo, I like to affectionately remember those earlier 1970s when everyone’s car had the same simple clarity, the same public pulse of hits streamed into everyone’s ears at the same times, and it was generally free of any charge save the car purchase. If you got wind of something you liked you drove that car to the record store and bought a vinyl or cassette, perhaps caught the band when they came into town. Musicians and songwriting were still revered.

Of course, on the long road trips, the pushbuttons didn’t hold the stations and you had to search. Very linear prospecting one had to ‘tune in’ to that distant radio tower and get it fixed just right so the frequency noise either side would cease. It was great exploration working around the dial, finding some distant broadcast like a ham-radio operator. There was a pleasant joy when out of grey spectrum there was this music —some great song beaming out over the vast ocean of static like some island oasis. The songs had more strength in those days. Like the radios cohering the landscapes, there was community in the airwaves —something shared to share at the water coolers.

For me it was Glen Campbell. Perhaps because there was the great shared television as well: communal visions of a nightly Johnny Carson or that late Midnight Special where all those bands performed those radio-famous hits live. For this kid, all I wanted to be was a “Rhinestone Cowboy.” I think it was the F-to-C chords, resolving the song title to some place easily heard forever. Cards and letters from people not known sings the chorus, then that “offers coming over the phone” with a downward cadence that makes you sigh.. Simple perfect song and melody that keeps you listening and singing along soon from the smile it’s made on your face from hearing it. Familiarity like a good friend —all of Glen’s songs. He sang in such a beautiful confidence. His playing was so crisp and clear. Like that station button zooming the dial to the favorite frequency, so were his songs bearing in on your heartstrings by your ear for a melody.

It’s blissfully fond to recall those years now forty years gone. The cacophony of digital streams stuttering with angry lyric in today’s music leave little for the heartbeat, let alone any dear memories secured listening to it. Maybe that’s just me growing old. Maybe in 1975, were I fifty then, I would be lamenting that loud rock pop culture and vaunting Benny Goodman tunes. One would expect a great, fantastic, magical convolution of tunes at this point, but it seems to me the tunes diminish (pun intended) as the ages pass. Much music is lost to the generations in a world so full now with, literally, too much input deemed ‘artistic.’ Yeah, that’s my musician opinion -honest enough to know too that there was just as much bad music then as there is now. My point is the frequency dial is now so full there isn’t time to breathe it in carefully and tastefully special. The songwriting cannot keep up the pace and the pace makes the songs accordingly too fast ... à la forgotten. 

There’s also no reason to thump a car silly rolling down the road bludgeoning others with low window-rattling frequencies and no melody.

There is an iPod now for every AM radio and there is something yet to be, as time will keep.

All about perspectives made in time I guess (did you catch that entendre?). Sometimes that perspective gets so sealed in its particular time that it becomes timeless. We could all shed our age and recall our wonder years, knowing each generation has something timeless to recall in theirs. 

R. e. s. p. e. c. t.

In our own context of days, the recollections come just at the right time.

There goes that pushbutton again, zipping the dial back to the best frequency --tuned right to your heart because of hearing. 

Take a listen and watch what happens.

Wish I could, stop this world from fighting.
La da da da da da la da da da da….