Almanac Music: ‘I heard you on the wireless back in ‘52’: Songs Referencing Film, TV or Radio
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Almanac Music: ‘I heard you on the wireless back in ‘52’: Songs Referencing Film, TV or Radio
Hi, Almanackers! This week’s piece in my ongoing series about key popular song themes concerns songs that reference films, TV or radio. So, dear readers, please put your relevant songs in the ‘Comments’ section. Below, as usual, are some examples from me to get things going.
(What we are not after in this theme, though, are the theme songs of particular films, TV or radio shows. That would be a virtually endless list!)
‘Western Movies’, written by Cliff Goldsmith and Fred Sledge Smith, performed by The Olympics (1958)
‘My baby loves the Western movies’
‘Drive My Car’, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, performed by The Beatles (1965)
‘I wanna be famous, a star of the screen’
‘Candle In The Wind’, written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, performed by Elton John (1974)
‘Hollywood created a superstar’
‘Horror Movie’, written by Greg Macainsh, performed by Skyhooks (1974)
“Horror movie, right there on my TV’
‘Home on Monday’, written by Glenn Shorrock and Beeb Birtles, performed by Little River Band (1977)
‘Hollywood / You’re in my movie’
‘Who Listens to the Radio’, written by Stephen Cummings and Andrew Pendlebury, performed by The Sports (1978)
‘Who listens to the radio? / That’s what I’d like to know’
‘Lady Writer’, written by Mark Knopfler, performed by Dire Straits (1979)
‘Lady writer on the TV’
‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, written by Geoff Downes, Trevor Horn and Bruce Woolley, performed by The Buggles (1979)
‘I heard you on the wireless back in ‘52’
‘Girls on Film’, written by Simon Le Bon, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, Andy Taylor and Nick Rhodes, performed by Duran Duran (1981)
‘Treaty’, written by Paul Kelly, Mandawuy Yunupingu, Stuart Kellaway, Cal Williams, Gurrumul Yunupingu, Milkayngu Mununggurr, Banula Marika and Peter Garrett, performed by Yothu Yindi (1991)
“Well I heard it on the radio / And I saw it on the television’
……………………………………………..
Now, dear readers / listeners – it’s over to you. Your responses to this topic are warmly welcomed. In the ‘Comments’ section, please add your own choice of a song (or songs) referencing films, TV or radio, along with any other relevant material you wish to include.
[Note: as usual, Wikipedia has been a good general reference for this piece, particularly in terms of checking dates and other details.]
Read more from Kevin Densley HERE
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About
Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His fifth book-length poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws ... I'm Feeling Too Indolent, was published in late 2023 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, which was published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.
Here’s one to start the ball rolling:
‘Radio Song’ – Felice Brothers (cracking song)
Good morning KD & thanks for the theme….I’ll kick off with:
Masters’ Apprentices – Turn Up Your Radio (1970)
Thanks for such a highly fitting, quality song to begin proceedings, Col!
Thank you, Karl – another fine, apt song to set the tone for our new theme.
Donald Fagen (Steely Dan) released a great solo album in 1982, and the title track is The Nightfly.
I’m Lester the Nightfly
Hello Baton Rouge
Won’t you turn your radio down
Respect the seven second delay we use
and the chorus
An independent station
WJAZ
With jazz and conversation
From the foot of Mt. Belzoni.
Thanks, KD. Doubtless, a very deep well!
Ita – Cold Chisel
‘When all the boys are gathered around
Shouting Ita’s on TV”
Showtime – Cold Chisel
‘Thirteen years and over
Tuned to radio between the hours
Of six and seven-thirty, AM programmer’s delight”
TV Eye The Stooges
Who listens to the radio The Sports
Aloha Steve and Danno – Radio Birdman
Thanks, Mickey, for ‘The Nightly’. I agree regarding this new song theme – I don’t think the river will run dry, to put it another way.
Thank you, Greg A, for your Chisel and Birdman songs. In particular, ‘Ita’ had always been a favourite of mine, mainly because of the extent to which it captures/signifies a moment in time for me, and for Australian media, too, I suppose.
Thanks, Willo for your input. (I’d already included the Sports song in my initial list.)
Joni Mitchell – You Turn Me On, I’m A Radio (1972)
A few lines from the song with another name for radio that I haven’t heard or spoken for far too long….:
If you’re lying on the beach
With the transistor going
Kick off the sandflies honey
The love’s still flowing
Television Addict – The Victims
Mars Needs Guitars – Hoodoo Gurus
Danny Says – Ramones
Less Than Zero – Elvis Costello
The Bombs Dropped on Xmas – Reels
Bonzo Goes To Bitburg – Ramones
Mexican Radio – Wall Of Voodoo
Satisfaction – Rolling Stones
Radios In Motion – XTC
Radio Radio – Elvis Costello and the Attractions
1970 – Stooges
This Is Radio Clash – Clash
Capital Radio – Clash
Radio Free Europe – REM
Radio Ass Kiss – Wonderstuff
Coffee and TV – Blur
B Movie – Elvis Costello
‘Get off My Cloud’ – Rolling Stones
Questioningly – Ramones
Channel Z – B52s
Road Movie To Berlin – They Might Be Giants
Radio – Teenage Fanclub
Radio Sweetheart – EC
Do You Remember Rock n Roll Radio – Ramones
Radio Song – REM
We Want The Airwaves – Ramones
Love On The Radio – Skyhooks
Movie Star – Harpo
Surely there was a better Girls On Film video available KD?
Errol – Australian Crawl
Radio Ga Ga – Queen
A couple from Neil Young.
Motion Pictures
“Motion pictures
on my TV screen”
A Man Needs a Maid
“A while ago somewhere I don’t know when
I was watchin’ a movie with a friend”
Know Your Product – The Saints
Thank you, Karl, for the Joni Mitchell song – excellent pick up there!. Love its title, too!
Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man – Gram Parsons.
Wonderful demolishment of shock jocks.
Thanks for the brilliant lists, Swish! Wonderful array of songs there.
Re ‘Girls on Film’: yes, the are undoubtedly a couple of clips that would have taken the eye more (let’s say), but, quirkily, I thought with that one I’d just focus on the song itself!
Thank you, Col, for ‘Get Off My Cloud’. Great early-ish Stones!
Thanks, Greg A, for your latest selections. To choose just one for comment – one of the main reasons I love ‘Radio Ga Ga’ so much is because of Freddy Mercury’s fabulous performance of it at the Wembley Live Aid concert in the mid-1980s.
I’m with Swish on that call!
Now, some Warner:
Suburban Boy (Saturday night, no subway station/Saturday night just changing TV stations/I’m just a Suburban Boy, just a Suburban Boy)
Million Miles from Home (They’ll be sitting around the TV, watching the action replay) Yep, song came out around the time cricket was starting to engage technology and man how far we come!
John Arlott Makes Me Chuckle (I’ve an ex-wife and a sex life/That it took me years to find/And there’s just no greater pleasure/Than John Arlott on the tele/And her etching little numbers in my spine)
Girls Wank (Girls wank and so do the interviewers on GTK/They yank they tug the best years of their lives away/They’re in love with the sound of their own voice)
Midday Movie (I’m getting poisoned by the midday movie/Randolph Scott’s got a gun to my head/He’s a mean bastard/And he just might use it./The last ten month’s I been out of work/I’m part of the carpet and/I’m covered in dirt/Yesterday the man came and he shampooed me/But it didn’t fix the toxins from my TV)
More Warner to come!
Thanks, Peter C, for ‘Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man’.
Geez, whoa, Rick and Swish, it’s just a video clip! Ha!
Many thanks for the Dave W material – obviously fits the theme very well, and some great quotes.
With the Dave Warner classic ‘Half time at the Football’, weren’t the boys and girls watching the match on TV?
Sorry for the vagueness but I’ve not heard it for 40+ years.
There is a song called TV on the debut Rose Tattoo album. The song credits list it to the five bad members but I’ve got some idea the song was written by Ian Rilan’s , original Rose Tattoo bassist.
Glen!
Radio Radio “I want to bite the hand that feeds me,” sings a venomous early Elvis Costello
Watching Westerns – The Neighbours (NZ)
Video Violence – Lou Reed
Satellite of Love – Lou Reed, who confesses “I like to watch things on TV”
Roy Rogers – Eric Bogle (“On Saturday mornings I’d ride to the movies/Booted and spurred on my horse made of tin”)
And finally, Science Fiction, Double Feature – Richard O’Brien/Rocky Horror Show (count the film references!)
Christ, the Port Adelaide fans and PR Department must be busy! 29 music comments already. “The greatest AFL season of all time” was bound to end in tears. Bread and circuses.
Harry Chapin’s 1973 ‘W.O.L.D.’
i am the morning dj on w*o*l*d
playing all the hits for you wherever you may be
the bright good morning voice who’s heard but never seen
feeling all of forty-five, going on fifteen
i am the morning dj on w*o*l*d
Nice pick up by Greg A on 2 Neil Young lyrics (I’ll cross them off my list) and Peter C’s pick up of Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite Of Love’ – which I wish I had on my list – love that song & that lyric.
Dreamin’ – Blondie
“When I met you in the restaurant
You could tell I was no debutante
You asked me what’s my pleasure
“A movie or a measure?”
I’ll have a cup of tea
And tell you of my
Dreamin’, dreamin’ is free”
The last time I saw Richard – Joni Mitchell
“Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dish washer and a coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights with the TV on
And all the house lights left up bright”
Spanish Pipedream – John Prine
“”Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Go to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try an’ find Jesus on your own”
Rex Bob Lowenstein – Mark Germino
“There’s a disc jockey in Hartlanberg
Who works at W.A.N.T.
He puts two or three eggs in him
And he’s in your car by 6.00 am
He lives for his job and he accepts his pay
You can call and request ‘Lay Lady Lay’
He’ll play Stanley Jordan, The ‘Dead and Little Feat
And he’ll even play the band from the college down the street
And his name is Rex Bob Lowenstein
He’s forty-seven, goin’ on sixteen
His request line’s open, but he’ll tell you where to go
If you’re dumb enough to ask him why he plays Hank Snow”
WOLD – Harry Chapin
“I am the morning DJ on W*O*L*D
playing all the hits for you wherever you may be
the bright good-morning voice who’s heard but never seen
feeling all of forty-five going on fifteen”
Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) – Woody Guthrie
“The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of thunder, it shook all the hills
Who are all of these dear friends, scattered like dry leaves?
The radio said, “They were just deportees”
Hi Karl,
You posted WOLD while I was getting my set together. Apologies for the double posting.
Dave
I liked to join songs up, so Video etc and Girls Talk aligned with the awesome 52 Girls in my head
You think you are a movie star-Harpo
Robert Deniro’s waiting – Bananarama
Hey Dave N – all good with the WOLD double dip – it is bound to happen. I liked your ‘Deportees’ pick up.
Bruce Springsteen – 57 Channels (And Nothin’ On) from his 1992 Human Touch album:
Man came by to hook up my cable TV/We settled in for the night, my baby and me
We switched round and round till half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Hey Karl, please don’t remind people of that album and that song (LOL)
As a demonstration of my good faith in Bruce can I submit, Western Stars (Once I was shot by John Wayne, yeah it was towards the end/That one scene’s bought me a thousand drinks, set me up and I’ll tell it for you, friend)
And a Bob song (only because it’s way up high on my Bob faves list):
Brownsville Girl (Well, there was this movie I seen one time/About a man riding ‘cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck/He was shot down by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself) written with Sam Shepard and an absolute classic from whatever Bob era, it comes from maybe Bob’s lowest point, in the 80s, and if this is a low point for Bob god help the rest of us strugglers!
Television man: Talking Heads
Mr Radio: Electric Light Orchestra
Parade: Roger Daltrey
You are yourself: Roger Daltrey
Radio: Crosby Stills Nash and Young
Films: Gary Numan
Child of vision: Supertramp
Regrets: Ben Folds Five
Bullroarer: Midnight Oil
All the wrong reasons: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Runnin’ down a dream: Tom Petty
Making movies: McGuinn-Hillman
Turn your radio on: McGuinn-Hillman
Poor boy: Split Enz
And from one of music’s most incredible artist, Prince:
Kiss (you don’t have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude)
Movie Star – self-explanatory, yep
On the Couch ((Come on, baby/Don’t make me sleep on the couch/Love Jones is on the TV again, baby/Eye want to go down south, yeah)
Sign O’ the Times ((Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling off a church and killed everyone inside/You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin’ you somebody died)
Then there’s Gil Scott-Heron 1970 masterpiece, ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ and man, that’s a song a half!
Hey Rick – what’s wrong with W*O*L*D* – apart from the song itself? Excellent pick up with your Gil Scott-Heron selection!…and I’ll cross ‘Brownsville Girl’ off my Dylan list – I somehow knew that you would get to it if I delayed more than a microsecond to add it.
Another Lou Reed contribution from his 1972 Transformer album to add to Peter C’s ‘Satellite Of Love’
Perfect Day
Just a perfect day
feed animals in the zoo
and then later a movie, too
and then home
Thanks, Glen, for your comments and for the Tatts song (I’m a bIt of Tatts fan, as you may know) – you mentioned the ‘five bad members’ instead of the ‘five band members’; either it was a typo, or you meant they were bad as in bad boys (for love, maybe).
Thank you, Peter C, for your foray into the new theme – ‘Radio Radio’ has already got a guernsey, but yours is an interesting and stimulating bunch of selections as usual.
Thenks, Peter B, for your characteristically thought-provoking interpolation. (Good word, interpolation.)
Thank you, Karl, for Harry Chapin’s ‘W.O.L.D.’ – fine narrative songwriting there.
Thanks, Dave N for your expansive input – typically, it is brimming with knowledge and detail.
To select just one song for comment, ‘Dreaming’ by Blondie is one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands. Indeed, I wrote in detail about the song and band in a past Almanac article: ‘Almanac Music: My Favourite Rock Drummers – Clement Burke of Blondie’
From Peter C to Peter B to, most recently, Peter W… thanks Peter W, for your input – and, while we’re on W’s, to Ian W for the Harpo and Bananarama songs.
Thanks, Karl and Rick, you’re interestingly cross-pollinating – so speak – in terms of your most recent Bruce and Bob material.
Separately, thank you, Rick, for your Prince and Gil Scott Heron songs – and thanks, Karl for Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’.
Thank you, Liam, for your suite of relevant material – the songs you choose add a dimension to the range of work already chosen for our theme. It’s a fine thing when one’s taste compliments the taste of others to add to an overall ‘picture’.
To Liam – the word should be ‘chose’, not ‘choose’, immediately above. Ooops!
Skateaway – Dire Straits (…she’s making movies on location…, from the album Making Movies)
Radio King – Golden Smog
On the Radio – Cheap Trick
Radio Bar – Fountains of Wayne
She Got The Radio – Corey Hart
Radio Nowhere – Bruce Springsteen
The Sun Always Shines on TV – A-ha
Mohammed’s Radio – Warren Zevon
In the Days before Rock ‘n’ Roll – Van Morrison (…those wireless knobs…)
Welcome aboard, Gerard! Many thanks for your song choices.
And we’ve now passed the fifty milestone, quite possibly in record time. Thank you to all involved.
Hey KD
Great momentum of the theme! What I really like about the themes and the contributors is when they include a song or a line of lyric which I have a deep fondness for, but hadn’t entered my ‘recall’ area. Gerard’s mention of ‘making movies on location’ is a prime example. Which raises a more important question?
Has Dire Straits ‘Money For Nothing’ been mentioned yet? I note you opted for Dire Straits’ ‘Lady Writer’
‘Now look at them yo-yos, that’s the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV……
…..We got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these color TVs’
Several songs from the late fifties and early sixties.
Wake Up Little Susie – The Everly Brothers
Saturday Night at the Movies – The Drifters
Along came Jones – The Coasters
Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) – Sue Thompson
Hi Karl. Yep, the momentum is great in relation to our new theme. Thanks for ‘Money For Nothing’, which hasn’t been mentioned until you did so.
Thank you, Dave N, for your latest four – a bunch of fine, distinctively fifties/early sixties numbers there.
Good Saturday morning KD. Fine sunny day in these parts.
Jon English – Hollywood Seven
‘And she said she’d be a movie star
And waited every mornin’ for the call’
David Bowie – 1984
‘You’ve read it in the tea leaves, and the tracks are on TV
Beware the savage jaw/Of 1984….
We played out an all-night movie role
You said it would last, but I guess we enrolled/In 1984’
Good morning to you, also, Karl. Weather’s pretty fine here, too.
Two good songs there – thank you. ‘Hollywood Seven’ is a reminder to me that the late Jon English had a notably good career back in the day, didn’t he?
Yes KD, JE had a solid career: 13 studio albums between 1973 – 1982; played Judas in JC Superstar; starred in ‘Against The Wind’. Later (circa 2009-10), he mentored up & coming musicians/singers in the ‘Rock Show’ series of concerts – I was fortunate to see the show in Queanbeyan in 2010 – it was excellent!
Although I have nothing of Jon’s to add to this theme, a scan of his songs suggests that he very well make an appearance in other recent themes.
And not to waste a comment (relevant to this & an earlier theme), I’ll add:
David Bowie – Starman
‘Didn’t know what time it was, the lights were low
I leaned back on my radio
Some cat was layin’ down some rock ‘n’ roll……
”””””Switch on the TV, we may pick him up on Channel Two’
Thanks, Karl, for the additional detail concerning Jon English. I’ve often thought one of his albums, Wine Dark Sea, had a particularly evocative title – it has stuck with me. I remember seeing JE live at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne in 1978, as a sixteen-year-old – he supported Thin Lizzy and Wha-Koo on that occasion. I wrote about him and that time in my life in the following Almanac (and Stereo Stories) piece. Check it out. I’d be interested to hear what you make of it: https://www.footyalmanac.com.au/almanac-memoir-and-music-words-are-not-enough/
Thanks also, for ‘Starman’.
The Trumpet Volunteer – Peter Sellers
The Purple People Eater – Sheb Wooley
Ballad of the Teenage Queen – Johnny Cash
Did anyone say George Jones?
Radio Lover (Coming to you live like I do every night/From the heart of your radio/I play a little sad and I play a lot of glads/And a few old cheatin’ songs) kinda corny but with a twist, and it’s George Jones so, like Elvis, it’s already better than most!
Memories of Us (That old school bus has long stopped runnin’/And I heard the driver died/And the movie house is all boarded up/Where we set side by side) titular song from 1975 album and first release following Tammy and his you know what. Great album but sadly George’s life starts to head downhill for a decade …
Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes (You know this old world is full of singers/But just a few are chosen/To tear your heart out when they sing/Imagine life without them/All your radio heroes) a big sentimental fave of mine.
And one from Bruce:
Backstreets (Remember all the movies, Terry, we’d go see/Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be/Well after all this time to find we’re just like all the rest/Stranded in the park and forced to confess/To hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets) – my absolute fave Springsteen song!
Cheers
Angie Baby – Helen Reddy
Welcome to the theme, Fisho. Thanks for your choices. Of particular interest to me was the novelty song ‘The Purple People Eater’, as it was a single in my mother’s extensive collection of 1950s singles.
Thanks, Rick for the George and Bruce songs, as well as the accompanying quotes, which always add a significant dimension.
And at this point your inclusion of George material has – by association – prompted me to include a Tom T. Hall classic (probably before you do), ‘Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine’, with its well-known line ‘The guy who ran the bar was watchin’ “Ironsides” [sic] on TV.’
Good arvo KD!
Had a read of your ‘Words Are Not Enough’ article – very, very cute!
Rick – you beat me to the draw on Springsteen’s ‘Backstreets’ but I’ll see you a ‘Thunder Road’ and chuck in a ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’. Put together, those 3 ‘road’ related songs represent tracks 1,2 & 4 of side 1 of Springsteen’s 1975 ‘Born To Run’ – an album that sits comfortably in my top 5 albums of all time.
Thunder Road
The screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
From a tenement window a transistor blasts
Turn around the corner, things got real quiet real fast
I walked into a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Here’s 7 from ABBA –
Honey, Honey
King Kong Song
Love Light
Dream World
Gimme, Gimmie, Gimme
Put on Your White Sombrero
The Day Before You Came
Thanks for reading the ‘Words are Not Enough’ article, Karl. The short memoir piece seemed to disappear without trace at the time (that happens to some pieces, of course, regardless of their merit or the website concerned), though I retain a personal fondness for it.
Thank you, also, for your excursions into Bruce territory via songs from an absolute classic Bruce album.
Thank you, Fisho, for your ABBA selections – a few lesser-known songs from their oeuvre in that bunch.
Didja Ever (One of those Days) – Elvis Presley (The final song from GI Blues)
Thanks, Fisho – always good to get some Elvis material.
We can’t forget the Red Symonds song ‘Smut’ from Skyhooks’ Living in the Seventies album, can we?
A couple more Bowie song:
Life On Mars
‘And she’s hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
For she’s lived it ten times or more’
Five Years
‘I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and TV’s’
UK Squeeze, as we affectionately knew this great band back in the day:
Cool for Cats
Up the Junction
Labelled with Love
Coincidentally they’d be in their best 10 so g’s, maybe even best 5.
I don’t think this song has been mentioned yet.
‘Celluloid Heroes’ – The Kinks.