The Songs Remain the Same: On Classic Rock & FM Radio

In 2012, my wife’s godfather, a kind and generous man who’s since passed, gave me his old car, a beat-up 1998 Corolla (pictured above). I had no wheels at the time, so beggars can’t be choosers. Plus, it had a tape deck, which was a sweet bonus for me, as I’d spent the better part of my life acquiring a vast library of cassette tapes that served as a catalog of popular music straddling the Baby Boomer and Gen X decades. From Dylan and the Beatles/Stones/Who/Zeppelin to Neil Young, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Bowie, CCR, and the Velvet Underground to Prince, U2, Springsteen, and the Talking Heads to the triple boom of 90s bounty that was grunge, techno, and hip-hop, I’d amassed hundreds of tapes – complete albums, mix tapes, full recordings of radio shows – brother, I was set for anything.

Except – two months into my ownership of the car, the tape player died. It was a moment worthy of Burgess Meredith’s lament when his glasses break in the classic Twilight Zone episode, ”Time Enough at Last.” For I’m a lazy man by nature and – well – here I am more than eight years later and I still haven’t replaced the damn thing. It’s a personal defect: I never file my taxes either, and I’m probably owed thousands. I rarely shave or get around to household repairs. I’ll stop before running down the rest of my grooming deficiencies, but you get the picture.

So for the better part of the last decade, I’ve been left to the mercies of commercial radio while making my one-hour daily commute to and from work. And while I try to stay relevant, sampling the indy offerings that crop up to the left of the FM dial or the newest top 20 pablum, I’m always drawn back to my North Star: classic rock. Those stations tend to have the strongest signals. And sometimes, when trying to blow off stream after a long day at a stressful job, not to mention contending with the distracting noise of big-rigs and sports cars zooming by in surrounding lanes, one’s ears just crave the familiar and reliable.

The history of FM radio is weighted heavily in favor of its first half, a relatively freeform time when DJs were left to imprint their own tastes on what was played. This era inspired some great songs about radio itself – Elvis Costello’s ”Radio, Radio,” David Bowie’s ”DJ,” Donna Summer’s ”On the Radio,” R.E.M.’s ”Radio Song” among them – and even a decent network sitcom, ”WKRP in Cincinnati.” But sometime in the ’80s the suits really took over, and they’ve only strengthened their grip on the dial as large chunks of the audience have departed for satellite stations and iPods. Tuning into FM radio at any point in the last 30 years is really no different than listening to music in a supermarket, or a dentist’s office. There’s a playlist, and the only songs you’ll be hearing are on that list. It’s an insular world that excludes so much great content for categorical (thinly veiled racial) reasons. Rock is based on the blues, as we’re told by every famous rock musician ever, but when was the last time you heard Buddy Guy or Howlin’ Wolf on the radio? And what about ’70s funk? I for one could use a lot more ”Double Dutch Bus” and a lot less ”Free Bird.”

Many years ago, I was asked to participate in a focus group involving radio playlists. Here, my long-held suspicions were confirmed about how the same songs keep getting played over and over. I was placed in a room with about 25 other people, almost exclusively men. We were given Scantron-like forums and asked to put on headphones and listen to (literally) five-second snippets of hundreds of familiar songs. If we wanted to hear more of said song we marked one bubble, and if we didn’t want to hear the song again we marked another. This went on for two hours at such a dizzying pace I contracted a mild carpel tunnel. I tried my best to fight the good fight, but a quick glance around the room reminded me of nothing so much as the day in 1988 when I took the GED test, and I knew as I left that day there’d be a lot more Journey and Bob Seger in my future.

Nevertheless, if my masochistic tendencies were going to trap me in a dystopia of musical saturation that on some levels probably violates the Geneva Convention, I resolved that I was going to learn something from the experience. Accordingly, I believe I’ve acquired a deeper understanding and appreciation for the power of this art form through my Homeric exposure to its signature works. I’ve also picked up a collection of random observations and complaints along the way. For example:

”Sweet Emotion” is a swell song, but it carries with it the awful stench of Aerosmith’s post-’70s output. ”Brown-Eyed Girl” is something like the 105^th best song in Van Morrison’s incredible catalog, but somehow it’s been anointed as the best, at least in terms of airplay. ”Stairway to Heaven” isn’t really such a great song, but its guitar solo deserves all the praise it gets, prompting me to mute the song until the drums kick in at the 4:19 mark of its 8-minute length (pro tip). Tom Petty, by all accounts a nice guy, is clearly a favorite of program directors, and I know it’s poor form to speak ill of the dead, but sometimes I think I’m the only person in the world who finds his music a criminal bore.

Finally, bands that author, say, two or three classic songs – or one or two good albums – seem to benefit greatly from FM’s prevailing paradigm to the detriment of far more accomplished acts. For example, Boston, with its radio-friendly ”More Than a Feeling,” has probably received more cumulative airplay than Lou Reed or Stevie Wonder, two infinitely superior artists who boast several albums chock-full of songs that are worthy of the ”classic” treatment. And don’t get me started on Guns ‘n’ Roses, who have somehow been elevated to an exalted status next to FM’s onetime Holy Trinity of the Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin. All this on the power of two – TWO – albums! And the better of the two (the rambling but frequently interesting ”Use Your Illusions”) isn’t even the one that gets the airplay. I liked ”Welcome to the Jungle” once, I really did, but if I never hear it again it’ll be too soon. Ditto ”Sweet Child o Mine,” and the less said about the execrable ”Paradise City” the better. Like Boston, these guys have actually been rewarded for their lack of productivity over the years. I think G’n’R’s undeserved status can best be explained by simple generational bias. The music directors who came of age in the late ’80s wanted their own Great Band, and they decided that Slash & Company were it. End of story. The rest of us have been suffering ever since.

In recent days, my deep dive into the wonderfully familiar has caused me to consider, as the shallow modern mind will do, what are the VERY greatest of these songs – which ones stand above the cacophony and deliver time and again, refusing to wear out their welcome as others do but somehow actually gaining power amid repeated listens? Against my better judgement, I began crafting a Top Five list, which I now present for your consideration. Understand this is not a list of my favorite songs, or an attempt to name the best rock songs ever written, since it’s not drawn from all the available songs in the cannon, but merely those that get played on classic-rock stations. That’s a massively limited pool to be sure; no deep album cuts, B-sides or unreleased treasures here, only songs we’ve all heard ad nauseum over the last 30, 40, 50 years. So, at the risk of sparking cyber howls of protest from rock fans far and wide, here are my choices for the five songs that continue to reliably light my fire, time after time, in ascending order:

”Heart of Glass” – Blondie
A strange choice, I know. Some might say this isn’t a rock song at all but a pop song, and a disco one at that. But it gets played on classic rock stations, and that’s no accident: Its airy simplicity is built to last. Pop songs tend to suffer in proportion to their attempts at complexity, and this one is all simple, good-time vibes and one-two-three rhythm. Yes, it’s about a break-up, but Debbie Harry’s phrasing and producer Mike Chapman’s arrangement make it clear that the spurned lover here has already moved on and is ready to party. Put it on and you’ll be ready to join her, transported instantly to the dance floor of your mind, floating weightless in a time and place where nothing can get to you and the music just keeps pumping. I think ”Heart of Glass” will always have that power. It’s almost ridiculously lacking in musical ambition and I think that’s it’s secret: Unlike the other songs on this list its creators were probably not trying to make something great, just a hit song. Sometimes when you stop trying to hit home runs, the ball goes a lot farther.

”Runnin’ With the Devil” – Van Halen
This number – like ”Heart of Glass,” released in 1978 – heralded the arrival of a new force in rock, with guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s unprecedented fretboard wizardry backed by singer David Lee Roth’s menacing bad-boy swagger and a rhythm section as good as any in the business. ”Runnin’ with the Devil” bears all the hallmarks of a young artist’s debut work: They’ve got a lot to say and are in a hurry to say it. It boasts of its rebellious attitude in the way rock did in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, through various incarnations of perceived threat to the general public – Elvis’ hips, the Beatles’ hair, Keith Richards’ drug bag, the punk rockers’ ripped clothes and pierced skin. This song is about rock itself – the feeling it engenders, the lifestyle it embraces. Roth is straight out telling you he’s coming for your daughters, and he’s not particularly sorry about it.

”The Spirit of Radio” – Rush
Most people would go with the more iconic ”Tom Sawyer” and that would be a fine choice too, but ”Spirit of Radio” is such a unique accomplishment, and an appropriate choice for a list of great driving tunes, since the song itself is about the very act of surfing the radio dial looking for a good song to rock out to. Alex Lifeson’s frenetic opening notes are meant to mimic the static-filled sound one hears when turning the radio knob, then the song takes off on not one but multiple layers that keep reversing back on themselves, as one might do when sampling two or three songs simultaneously while driving. Classic rhythm chords and some feel-good rock lyrics usher us in, but it’s not long before the band fiddles with our expectations, virtually changing the channel on us in the middle of the song. ”Invisible airwaves crackle with life, bright antennae bristle with the energy,” signer Geddy Lee wails, stretching the plaintive melody for all its worth. Later the song will sink into a classic Rush groove, with Lee’s bass the driving force, and in between are two reggae breaks in which Lee (and lyricist and drummer extraordinaire Neal Peart) informs us that the studio wall and the concert hall the band calls home ”echo with the sounds of salesman.” I don’t know about the salesman, but whatever these guys are selling, I’m buying.

”Won’t Get Fooled Again” – The Who
This song made a big splash in its day (1971) for its pioneering use of the synthesizer, and for singer Roger Daltrey’s epic scream at the end. But Pete Townsend’s guitar playing has never really gotten the credit it deserves – his muscular fills and rhythm chords here are as potent as any of Keith Richards’ or Mick Ronson’s best work. It’s a wondrous and exhilarating musical journey, and its long synth break was such a revelation that it quickly took over rock for a time, in effect stripping the power away from one of Townsend’s most original achievements. The lyrics hold up pretty well, too. How could you go wrong eviscerating the gullible proletariat and the powerful in equal measure, all while lamenting that nothing will ever change?

”All Along the Watchtower” – Jimi Hendrix
Not just my favorite song, but clearly the best recording in rock history – I’d lose respect for anyone who tried too hard to argue otherwise. Hendrix’s 1968 take on Bob Dylan’s haunting, spare allegory from the previous year is 3 minutes and 58 seconds of musical perfection. Every fraction of every one of those seconds explodes with sonic goodies and furious, tightly corralled intensity. The guitar solo is justly celebrated as the greatest ever, and the mini solo between the first and second verses is no slouch either. This is the moment when rock reached its full potential, taking off into the electrified stratosphere of heightened consciousness during a unique moment in American history. The wonder is that the song never lost its power for a moment during the many years that followed, as the crucible of the late ’60s passed and the zeitgeist sagged and slouched its way into new, less hopeful realities.

Honorable mentions: ”Gimme Shelter” and ”Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Stones, anything by the Beatles (honestly, they really aren’t played enough on the radio these days), ”Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry, ”Blue Sky” by the Allman Brothers, ”September” by Earth Wind & Fire, ”Once In a Lifetime” by Talking Heads, ”Blinded By the Light” by Manfred Mann (I’d include Springsteen’s fantastic original if anyone bothered to play it), ”Fat-Bottomed Girls” by Queen (a better pure rock song than the still-great-but-pretentious ”Bohemian Rhapsody”), “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie, ”Song Remains the Same” by Zeppelin, ”Only The Beginning” by Chicago, ”White Room” by Cream, and ”Anarchy in the UK” by the Sex Pistols.

It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve heard some of these songs well in excess of 1,000 times. How many movies could withstand 1,000 viewings without losing their power to entertain? How many books? Yet every one of these songs has stood the test of time, still alive and potent long after some of the artists themselves have left us. What better testament to this crude genre that was repeatedly dismissed as a fad in its first few decades, shunned by  snobs as lacking musical virtue, and continues to be cavalierly dismissed as obsolete in the new century? If rock’s ubiquity in advertising, TV and film hasn’t shown us its value, if Bob Dylan’s 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature didn’t enshrine its cultural legacy, then allow my eight-year odyssey on the freeways of Los Angeles to assure you – rock ‘n’ roll will never die.