SLS: Like A Song On The Radio

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For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday Jim is inviting us to play ‘a song that expresses appreciation for music, singing, the radio.’ His post Buy-A-Musical Instrument Day tells more. This yet another of those ‘national days’ so beloved by our American friends. I’m just glad that Jim didn’t set us a theme last month for National Pick Your Nose Day! It was 23 April, if you missed it.

One song immediately leapt out at me for today, and it was joined shortly by another, so I’m going with both of them. One is in the radio category, the other is about singing. Both are long time favourites of mine – in other words, they go back a few years!

I’m leading with a song by one of the best singer-songwriters of the last sixty years or so, one of the many gems he has bestowed upon us:

As the video showed, that was Al Stewart with Song On The Radio. In case you want to see the full lyrics again without the video, genius.com obliges, as always.

Song On The Radio was released by Al on his eighth album, Time Passages, which came out in September 1978 and made #10 in the US, #8 in Canada, and #39 in the UK. It is still my favourite of his albums: the title track is superb, and there isn’t a dud among the full nine tracks. Like just about everything he has done, he wrote the song himself, and I love the way he uses the metaphor of the radio to describe his relationship, which is a little enigmatic: has she gone away, or is there a future for them? This track was released as a single in January 1979, and reached #29 in both Canada and the US. In an interview he explained how the song came about:

“I was kind of making fun of Arista Records” who had “asked for a mid-tempo ballad with a saxophone…They wanted a song that could be played on the radio, [so] very tongue-in-cheek I wrote…’Song on the Radio’. I thought they’d get that I was actually joking, but of course they didn’t & …put it out as a single [which] made the Top 30, [so] the joke was on me because I screwed up a preposition” – referring to the opening lines “I was making my way through the wasteland/ The road into town passes through” which ends with a preposition – “Worse, I used the same word [through] twice in the same sentence.”

He clearly has perfectionist tendencies: the grammar of most songs is often awful, but he worried about it! But as I say, I have loved this song and album since I bought it, all those years ago.

The original release of my second song for today goes back a little further, to 1971. It is another from a lovely album, which still gets an occasional airing from me now, fifty five years on. This video is a re-recorded version from 1979, when the song was used as part of a promotional campaign:

Sing Children Sing by Lesley Duncan. And you can find the full lyrics here, thanks again to genius.com. Like everything else on the album the song was written by Lesley. If you want to know more of her background Wikipedia’s page is quite helpful.

Wikipedia is, though, very light on details about this song, but the background information by the video poster is a little more forthcoming:

“Sing Children Sing was originally released as a single in 1969 and became the title track of Lesley’s first album, released in 1971. This particular version of the song was recorded specifically for the UNESCO International Year of The Child which was first recognised in 1979. The track was recorded in Cornwall, produced by Tony Cox, and involved a number of people in the chorus including Pete Townshend, Phil Lynott, Kate and Paddy Bush, Joe and Vicky Brown, Billy Nicholls, Madeline Bell and a group of children from a local village school.”

As I said, the Sing Children Sing album is lovely, and included Lesley’s version of her own song, Love Song, which had been recorded the previous year by Elton John for his Tumbleweed Connection album, which I featured a couple of weeks ago in my A Classic Album occasional series. That post is here, if you missed it. Lesley’s album had a number of guest musicians, among them Elton (again), who was taking a break from the recording sessions for his next album, Madman Across The Water. This song closes her album, and its simple encouragement to children (and all, I guess) to sing as a way of feeling positive and making your world feel a better place is a message that remains timeless. Music is, as you will have noticed, a very important part of my life, and this song encapsulates my feelings perfectly. And we all need something uplifting in current times, I think.

That’s me done for today, and I hope you enjoyed two songs which are very special to me. My thanks as always to Jim for hosting the show, and I’ll be interested to see what others play for this theme. I’m off to find somewhere to hide for a couple of hours later this afternoon, as one of my football teams tries to avoid relegation in the final match of the season!

Enjoy your day, and I’ll see you again for Tuesday Tunes – a new theme this week, and it is one that I’m amazed I’ve never used before. Watch this space… 😊

47 thoughts on “SLS: Like A Song On The Radio”

  4. What a great story on the Al Stewart song…that figures with a record company. The Turtles did that with Eleanor and the record company released it.
    I never heard of the Lesley Duncan song…but I like it. Nice picks Clive.

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  7. Yep, I agree with the consensus; one good song I know, one nice and new (to me) I didn’t.

    I’ll agree with Al and your good self about some lyrics, which can verge on the drivellish. Hearing some of late, words fail me. As they do the ‘artistes’ who puts their name and copyright to sh- to it.

    Anyway, on a more positive note, have a nice stress-free day Clive.

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  11. I have found this post rather touching. I grew up in the 60″s/70’s. For some reason, the atmosphere these songwriters captured was never captured again. It’s just different. I can’t explain it. But thank you.

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  12. It was really nice to hear this Al Stewart song today, as it is a great match for the theme Clive.  I didn’t know the Lesley Duncan song, but I thought it was perfectly lovely.  I can promise you that there will never be an International Nose Picking Day theme day here on Song Lyric Sunday, butt I am not ruling out World Toilet Day.

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    • I’m pleased you liked these, Jim. And I’m happy to have introduced you to the Lesley Duncan song. Both are, as I said, long term favourites of mine.

      You should take that as a challenge for a future theme! I once found a website that listed all of the US’ National Days – there must be some really obscure ones in there you could use 🤣

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  13. Holy cow, Clive! A blast from the past with Al Stewart; so cool to hear this song again. Lesley Duncan’s song is a new one for me; it was quite lovely and I enjoyed it very much. This song reminds me of another, which I can’t place at the moment. Maybe if I come back and listen to it again later, something will click. Excellent choices this week. 🎶

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    • I’m pleased you liked these, Nancy. I’ve been a fan of Al Stewart since the beginning and have all of his albums, a collection of vinyls, cassettes and CDs. That whole Lesley Duncan album is lovely – you probably know ‘Love Song’ from Elton John’s cover but Lesley’s own version is well worth a listen. Hope your memory lets you recall that missing song!

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  16. Liked both of these Clive although I haven’t heard the first one before but I am sure I have heard the Lesley Duncan track before – it has great lyrics thanks for sharing today 😀

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