A funny thing happened as Alex and I were pulling out of the petrol station…
The radio in the Traverse was actually tuned to commercial radio which is an exceptionally rare event at best. I’ve made it clear through the years my general disdain for what passes as commercial musical programming and if anything, it’s gotten much more banal and wretched in my lifetime.
It wasn’t always this way. WMMO-FM in Orlando whilst I was at university was probably my ideal commercial radio listening experience because when they started out, the rules were simple:
- The cardinal sin was talking over the music and just wasn’t done.
- Every song they played was identified in terms of artist and title which made getting the album of songs you loved much easier!
- They had adverts (it *WAS* commercial, after all!) but they were generally grouped together on the half hour and more often than not were packed all together near the top of the hour. That was lovely if you needed a comfort break or just hated adverts!
Sadly, commercial radio that respected the listener went out of fashion a long time ago, well before ClearChannel and it’s ilk started buying all of the radio stations, firing any local staff, and running them from a remote location.
Anywho, the song that was playing before I could switch the Traverse to WFOX (Bluetooth to my phone’s playlists!) was “Money” by Pink Floyd.
Ask anyone in this country to name the first track that comes from Pink Floyd’s album “Dark Side of the Moon” and the vast majority of the time “Money” is the track they’ll pick and for good reason as it was the first big hit for Pink Floyd in the United States eventually making it to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1973.
As is our custom, Alex and I were happily singing along as we’re heading up the New Bern Avenue back to the house so that Alex can get ready for his shift at Chick Fil-A when I realised that a particularly notorious stanza in the lyrics was coming up that includes a word that radio stations have gotten very creative about changing or just plain silencing it.
I’m sure you know exactly where this is going…
Money, get back
I’m alright, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack
Money, it’s a hit
Don’t give me that do-goody-good bull****
And wouldn’t you know it, Alex sang that word with quite a bit of gusto without a second thought.
Oh, wait a minute…there were second thoughts. And the second thoughts he had was to get his trademark Cheshire Cat grin and let loose with that infectious laugh that makes you incapable of doing anything else but love him!
