Whither 1976?

This week I will turn 44 years old, & since the beginning of Self Help Radio, on the show that happens on or before my birthday, I have gone back in time to explore my favorite music from a bygone year. I started at 1968, the year I was born, & have progressed one year with each year of the show. I have now reached - or will reach tomorrow - 1976.

In 1976 I had my first real contact with a disc jockey. I had already become obsessed with music. Certain songs, especially the ones with stories, intrigued me. At Christmas this year, I would receive my first album: Elton John's Greatest Hit, primarily for the song "Rocket Man."

But when I made contact with an actual radio station, it was this song I wanted to hear: Rhinestone Cowboy by Glenn Campbell. I remember asking my mother, while she was doing things as I sat on the floor listening to the radio, if I could call the radio station to request that song. The deejay had, after all, said the number several times. She said I could!

I called & requested the song. I remember being very surprised that the deejay himself answered. Even now, I get calls from people asking to speak to "the guy who was just on the radio." As if there's someone between the deejay & the listener. But not in 1976. He said he'd play it. I was ecstatic.

I waited for over forty minutes for the song. At one point, my mother yelled at me for turning the radio up too loud, but I had to go to the bathroom & had to keep listening. It seemed to me that the station played one or two songs more than once in that little span of time, but no "Rhinestone Cowboy." I don't recall whether I asked my mother for permission, but I called the deejay back.

I told him I had requested the song, & he had said that he'd play it, & that that had happened nearly an hour ago. Now, I obviously sounded like a little kid. I had a high voice & was all of eight years old. But the deejay lied to me. He said, "I just played it. You must have missed it."

I don't know if I already knew that adults could just lie to you like that - I come from a family of bullshitters, ones that are terrible at lying but do not let that stop them. But I was astonished that the man on the other end of the line could be so brazen. I had been listening faithfully for an hour, & he dismissed me.

What life lessons I took from this immediately, I don't know, but over time I became suspicious of fm radio. I remember - this is much later, when I was in my teens - even casually marking down, while I was doing homework, the songs that one station played over & over. Perhaps I was learning that it was a scam, & perhaps it made me appreciate non-commercial radio all the more when I finally discovered it.

Which reminds me: Self Help Radio is on one fine non-commerical radio station, WRFL, for two whole hours tomorrow. That's 88.1 fm on the dial, online at wrfl.fm. I know it's a holiday, so you can wait until it's archived at self help radio dot net if you want. But it's going to be all my favorite music from 1976, so why wait?