Dec 282011
Today we seek songs featuring radio broadcast sounds, either real or created and including the sound of someone turning the dial. You know this device. I will start with The Beatles’ “l Am the Walrus,” featuring some broadcast of Shakespeare’s King Lear.
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light”
aloha
LD
Obvious one is Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio by the Ramones, but also…
Places That Are Gone (single version) – Tommy Keene
On The Radio – Cheap Trick
“Mr. Radio” by ELO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxSy4Gcn4z8
Opening theme to “WKRP in Cincinnati”: “And the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.”
aloha
LD
“Radio Etienne” from St. Etienne. I could only find live versions which include the tape of a tape of a radio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA6eH2qM86E&feature=related
Can I just lump in the entirety of the crapfest that is Roger Waters’ “Radio K.A.O.S.”?
The Kinks, “Around the Dial.”
Prefuse 73 “Radio Attack”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-28dIV-j2ac
Please do, thank you!
John Lennon and “Radio Play”. This is from his “avant garde” days and it’s exactly as the title inters – Lennon playing with a radio dial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBicW0CDdp4
Beck’s I’m A Loser has a George H W Bush clip
I’ll also lump in the entire My Li9fe in the Bush of Ghosts album
typo sorry
The Who, “Cut My Hair,” the song that made me think of this thread the other day.
“Reception” by Wings, the first track on Back to the Egg.
“China My China,” by Brian Eno.
The Kim Fowley produced version of the Modern Lovers’ “She Cracked” (on the Bomp LP The Original Modern Lovers) has some radio dial spinning on it .
Silent Night/Nine O’Clock News – Simon and Garfunkel
“The Way” — Fastball
“Detroit Rock City” – KISS
The dreaded “We Built This City” by (Jefferson) Starship.
One of my favorite Eno songs!
The Swirlies entire album “Blonder Tongue Audio Baton” uses radio noise and radio clips (some rather vulgar) to transition between songs. My friend Andy, bassist in the band, is credited with “radio” as one of his instruments on that album, and when performing live, he would twizzle the nobs on an old something or other to get the static sound.
“The Who Sell Out” count?
aloha
LD
The transition channel changing out of Pink Floyd’s Have A Cigar into the faux radio crackling of the beginning of Wish You Were Here. Probably the first time I noticed it and still my favorite use of it.
“Mexican Radio” by Wall of Voodoo.
“Still”- Nixon’s Head…I mean, man, this is a competition!
I thought of that but wasn’t sure it was radio sounds at the start.
The beginning of the title track from Radio Ethiopia has sounds that I think are from a radio, maybe shortwave.
There are bits of Spanish-language broadcasts interspersed throughout the song.
Modern Music – Be Bop Deluxe, opens with someone twirling the dial.
“Still” by that band Nixon’s Head.
Wilco Poor Places has the infamous “Yankee, Hotel, Foxtrot” bit of shortwave tomfoolery.
Buzzcocks, “I Believe.”
Paintwork – The Fall
The version of “When I Was Young” by Jane Aire and the Belvederes on the the “Stiff Records Presents Akron” compilation leads off with a good twenty seconds of radio switching.
Burn it Down by Dexy’s Midnight Runners – You can hear snippets of Deep Purple, the Sex Pistols and the Specials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKPxNW8fx0c
Paul Westerberg’s 49:00 is meant to sound like you’re tuning around a radio dial, especially the quick snippets of classic rock tunes at the end “Hello, Goodbye”, “Born to be Wild”, “Rocket Man” etc. I think the .mp3 was pulled because he never got clearances to use these tunes.
Great one! Just thinking about that song makes me want to raise a beer-soaked fist!
Incident at 66.6 FM – Public Enemy
“Run Run Run” — The Third Rail