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Words In The Air [1]
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Date: 2022-10-24
Somewhere in Washington state, Autumn, 1974
In 1974 portable music wasn’t personal. It was called a radio and that is all there was. Mindless chatter from disc jockeys and short little songs that were never over three minutes long. And commercials. Loud and often. The broadcasters upped the volume on their ads to make sure you heard them. Had to give the advertisers their money’s worth. Choice was limited, too, as each city only had a handful of stations.
Vinyl records were still in their heyday, but they were for in home use only. Cassettes had been invented, but the bulk and weight and space they required meant that they simply would not do. I needed the most portable music possible, as I was about to embark upon an extended journey with limited resources. Most of the time I would be out in the countryside, where radio was less about music and more about community.
Really. Instead of listening to music, radio is how people stayed up to date with local as well as national news. It would cover statewide news stories, too. “Good Neighbor” shows, livestock reports, school lunch menus and weekly church worship were a staple of small town radio stations. Music had its scheduled time slots with polka, oldies, and top forty sharing little pieces of time between the local shows and commercials. It was a wonderful medium in the pre-internet world, but it was a one-way street with everything coming at you and no easy way to respond. Your choices in music were often limited by where you lived. Except after dark.
As teenagers we would ride about the countryside at night. There wasn’t much for kids to do until they were twenty-one. But at sundown a lot of local, lower-powered radio stations signed-off until sunrise. There was less clutter in the air then and really big, powerful stations could be heard from across the continent.
There was KAAY from Little Rock, Arkansas that played rockabilly and blues music with few commercials. Stations from Chicago brought Studs Terkel into our world. His interviews with likes of working people from all corners set him apart. He talked with hookers and jail birds, artists and rebels in his interviews and became the gold standard that inspired legendary interview programs such as NPR’s Fresh Air.
Jazz music careened across the country from New York late at night. Classical music played on commercial stations, too. And baseball. For eight months a year, there was the unfolding soap opera of baseball games being broadcast.
But so were right-wing conservatives ranting against Jews and immigrants and the absolute danger of godless socialism that Liberals were bringing to America. Before there was an internet, there was AM radio and call-in programming that foretold what what to become of latter day internet politics.
It is interesting to note that nearly fifty years on, radio continues to thrive and is still mostly a one-way means of communication. Margaret Mead back in the 70’s, believed that radio would be wiped out by television. She was glad of it, too, because she noted how the direct and intimate means of communication that radio offers made it perfect for despots and tyrants to make their case and grow their influence. But she was wrong about its demise.
Today, the radio dial is more than ever full of chatter and diatribe. Religious stations are on every dial and dominate in many parts of the country. Political talk is popular, too, but apart from news reports, it is almost uniformly delivering far right ideology. There is almost no counter viewpoint heard. One can only speculate at why conservatives find political talk so stimulating.
A lot of Americans dismiss the power of radio. Plugged in and connected as we are in the twenty-first century, they dismiss AM radio as a relic of the past. I think that like Margaret Mead, they have greatly exaggerated its demise.
Think about all the people who work with their hands, who have to watch what they are doing, but who are familiar and confident in what they do. The work is not enough, and their mind gets bored. Music starts to repeat itself, and the news sadly, does, too. Looking for stimulation, talk shows fill that void. But the unending uniform slant to the talk show narrative has its effect. Think of the sales reps driving between sales calls. Cabbies and truck drivers moving goods across town or across the land. Mechanics and desk clerks, farmers in the field and repairmen out on the job. Finish carpenters, mechanics, and landscapers tune in radio to pass the time. In quiet shops and small offices, the scenario plays itself out. The years may fly by, but the days can be long and radio plays companion to many who work at myriad jobs, helping them pass the time.
Forgive my digression into the impact of radio upon modern America. Radio broadcasters fly below the radar and really should not. statiista.com reports that radio reaches over ninety precent of Americans each week. While country music is the single largest format, news and talk is a close second, and religious oriented stations, which also trend very conservative are the next. Radios are in every home, car, truck and bus. Radios are the most common media appliance in the world. They are a simple, cheap and effective means of communicating. That is why advertisers love radio. It is also why we must be aware of its dark side.
I knew almost none of this in 1974. I was just planning a trip of indeterminate length, with no pre-determined destination. I had to be able to carry everything I needed in a single pack. No extra weight. Batteries and a radio didn’t make the cut. What was important to me was to carry my music, which radio wouldn’t do, anyway.
It is easy to hear a favorite song in your head, even if you only know some of the lyrics. And words, which are the common thread of songs that fill my heart, are lightweight and completely portable. Words; which is why I carried the songs of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell with me on the road. James Taylor and Carol King rode along. Steven Stills and Gordon Lightfoot reminded me of where I had come from. Graham Nash and Elton John were always there to lift my spirits. Cat Stevens inspired me. Traditional folk ballads rooted their values deep into my days.
Words are the sinew that stitched these artists’ songs together. They all wrote poetry, and set it to music that accented their words and drove home emotions behind their words. Making it all fit into my pack took many hours of work. I planned on using a small spiral bound notebook for a journal. So before leaving, I started on the back page, carefully writing down the lyrics to the songs I wanted. There was no easy source for lyrics I could take to the library and xerox. I had to listen and re-listen and faithfully record each word. My mind imprinted the music more fully in the process, so that months later, lying in a tent on my sleeping bag a thousand miles from home, I could shine my flashlight onto a page and hear every word, every note of every song on my own back pages.
At the end of each day, lying in my tent, I would pick out a single song. Reading along, I would hear every note with great clarity. Then I would settle in, lights out, and drift off to sleep with the melody in my ears, memories it unearthed turning in my mind.
There was no news of the day. I had the extraordinary luxury of not needing to care. It did not last, as eventually the world did catch up with me and for a while I became a news hound, hounded by too much information too much of the time. Too much of which was beyond my ability to do anything about. Information was driving a wedge between myself and the world.
So I have made a compromise with responsibility. I will give the news two hours a day to distress me with the horrors that are now common. Sometimes I will even respond to the news with letters, a donation or some other act. But after those two hours, my day belongs to the poets and storytellers. I especially prefer those who accompany their words with stringed instruments. And I am partial to the female voice.
It is impossible not to feel for the children being so cruelly taken from their mommas in the U.S. war on colored people at our border. It is impossible not to feel rage at what is being done to democracy itself by some of our “leaders”. Guilt and rage and despair beckon us from the helplessness we face trying to reconcile our lives as Americans with the atrocities that are performed in our names daily.
So do what you can. But just once a day. Then go seek out the words of wisdom and solace and inspiration that brought you to this place in your life where compassion is more valuable than tax breaks. Let the music calm you, and let the words soothe you. Your friends and family need your kind attention. Listen to them. The world needs you.
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