Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dave Porter, who writes:
After some 20 years I have rediscovered this radio song by the UK northern Irish singer Van Morrison.
“In The Days Before Rock’n’Roll”
There are some great TX station names in the song! It’s a full 8 minutes long….
Take a listen…
Click here to view/listen on YouTube.
I don’t think I’ve heard this song in twenty years or more. Thank you for sharing this, Dave!
I’ll have to add Van Morrison to the list of radio influenced musicians we’ve featured in the past, including:
- Peter Gabriel
- Joe Strummer
- John Lennon
- Wilco
- Besnard Lakes
- Elliott Sharp
- Növö
- Holger Czukay
- and, of course, our friend Madtone!
Post Readers: Do you know of any other musicians who were influenced by the shortwaves? Please comment and share links to their work!
The morse code is sos
Ian g3zhi
I’ve read here and there about this song and the offshore UK pirate radio stations. The first one was started in 1964 when Van was 19. For those of us of this generation THE station was 208 on MW, Radio Luxembourg. It was, in the 50’s and early 60s, the only source for rock/pop (other than an occasional half hour on BBC radio). In Ireland and England you could pick it up after dark only. The signal would come and go. It had ads (BBC didn’t, of course) for picking the football draws (for the Pools) and for Charles Atlas (thinking of The Who Sell Out).
In Vans song,I’d just love to know who Justin is,or was.The song reminds you of the old radio dials,especially Hilversum.If you listen VERY closely,you can hear Paul Durcan speak a line to Van Morrison just after the final note,along the lines of “We got a right few in there Van”.Turn the volume up and listen.
“Mexican Radio” by Wall of Voodoo, is a 1983 shoutout to the “border blaster” radio stations from Mexico: https://youtu.be/IUjbOcO_hT0 One of them, XERF, is where legendary DJ Wolfman Jack made his name.
Raised in the Mid-West, we relied on OK City, Little Rock and border radio stations for Rock and Roll. SWLing grew from there. As for Van, I suspected his SWLing after ‘Into the Mystic’ .
Car Wheels On a Gravel Road
By Lucinda Williams
“Loretta’s singing on the radio”
And
“Hank’s voice on the radio”
No one has listed my fave shortwave song ever!
(As long as you consider 27MHz shortwave – its a wee bit high but shortwave goes to 30MHz doesn’t it?)
B-52’s Planet Clare. Fred’s instrument on this great song is a 27MHz CB Handheld.
He is a real talent at playing the ‘Tone Key’ and turning down the squelch to play radio white noise.
If you ever get the chance to see them live you will enjoy this song, they usually play it in the encore set, and they still use a CB handheld!
https://youtu.be/WT1L5swMMVI
Roger Waters from Pink Floyd fame “Radio Waves”
Brown eyes girl mentions a transistor radio.
Caravan mentions radio a few times.
Domino too
Probably others, none immediately come to mind.
He was probably influenced by pirate radio.
But the strings straddle his top-notch and more artistic hits.
Michael
Can’t say I do but I do like Wilco.
Eric G.
W3YHF
Well, I’m mostly a rocker but because of the shortwave hobby I stumbled up this guy. The “group” (he’s solo) is The Moscow Coup Attempt. It is way better to do audio and video as his imagery is… interesting.
Those of us that have listened to shortwave our entire lives, though, will hear some familiar sounds in his music!
The Moscow Coup Attempt – “The Failure of Shortwave Radio”
Kraftwerk, Radioactivity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0D7MBBI2Ik
The lyrics:
Justin, gentler than a man
I am down on my knees
At the wireless knobs
I am down on my knees
At those wireless knobs
Telefunken, Telefunken
And I’m searching for
Luxembourg, Luxembourg,
Athlone, Budapest, AFN,
Hilversum, Helvetia
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
When we let, then we bet
On Lester Piggott when we met
We let the goldfish go
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
Fats did not come in
Without those wireless knobs
Fats did not come in
Without those wireless knobs
Elvis did not come in
Without those wireless knobs
Nor Fats, nor Elvis
Nor Sonny, nor Lightning
Nor Muddy, nor John Lee
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
When we let and we bet
On Lester Piggott 10/1
And we let the goldfish go
Down the stream
Before rock ‘n’ roll
We went over the wavebands
We’d get Luxembourg,
Luxembourg and Athlone
AFM stars of Jazz
Come in, come in, come in, Ray Charles
Come in, the high priest
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
When we let and we bet
On Lester Piggott 10 to 1
And we let the goldfish go
And then the killer came along
The killer, Jerry Lee Lewis
A whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on,
Great balls of fire
Little Richard
Justin, gentler than a man
Justin, Justin, where is Justin now?
What’s Justin doing now?
Just, where is Justin now?
Come aboard
Just heard this song on, ironically on XM/Sirius radio, and listened hard to the beautiful lyrics by Van The Man Morrison. Had to stop what I was doing just to enjoy hearing all the great names of radio and history of the radio waves. Thanks Jim Ladd and Tom Petty for playing this song on your shows.
Just in case …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Killed_the_Radio_Star
😀 those were times, and, at risk of going totally OT,at the moment I’m listening this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQYQTFudrqc
🙂
Well… what about “Video Killed the Radio Stars”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ
😀
If you like country, this song describes many peoples youth with radio.
I Watched It All On My Radio by Lionel Cartwright
Thanks, Gord! I gave up a couple years ago on trying to remember the name of that song, after hearing it once— on the radio, of course!
Wow, this guy was obviously a SWL
Van has mentioned “radio” in a few songs, not withstanding the 1978 hit “Wavelength.”