Whitney Houston "I Will Always Love You"

Though I didn’t mention it in the previous post, I suppose a large part of my distaste for requests has everything to do with my 6 years of hosting Request Radio.

Night after night I was asked to play songs that I simply didn’t like.  Pop tunes in the era of N’Sync and Britney Spears and “Mmmm Bop” and “Wannabe” over and over again.

Worse, was that there was always a dedication that went with it.  And often they were just inappropriate.

Now, the bulk of the audience was high school age, so there was just something wrong about being asked to say and play:

“From Matt to Andrea, this song is for you,” and then play Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love To You.”

Or have a 6th grader ask another kid out by requesting “Nightmare On My Street.”

The one that really drove me nuts was when someone---sometimes a kid and sometimes an adult---would request Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” and send out a dedication to their boyfriend or girlfriend saying “I love you so much!”

It was annoying, because “I Will Always Love You” is perhaps one of the greatest break-up songs of all time.  It’s about leaving someone, giving them up and letting them go.

And people kept using it to “say how they really feel” about someone. 

Irony!!!

Worse, if I’d try to explain this to the requester (“You know this is a break-up song, right?”) I’d just come off like I was some kind of prick.  So I gave up offering my helpful, and correct, advice, and just resigned myself to this truth: 

Requests are stupid.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Dionne Warwick "That's What Friends Are For"

So I’d gotten a job on the radio.  Now what?

Like a dog that finally caught the car he was chasing, I suddenly terrified by the idea that I was going to be on the air.

Just days earlier, I had been interviewed by the owners of WABN about their open position---as host of the nightly “Request Radio” program.  For two hours each evening, the phone lines were open, and literally, if you asked for it and we had it, we’d play it.

Whitney Houston?  Yes.

Followed by Ozzy Osbourne?  Yes.

“That’s What Friends Are For”?  Yes.

Into Rage Against The Machine.  Yes.

If we had it, we played. 

And we would read a dedication for every song.  Anything you wanted us to say.

Want to ask someone out?  We’d say it.

Want to break up with someone on the radio?  We’d say it for you.

Inside joke between your friends?  We’ll announce it.

Want to tell the world that you are lonely?  We’ll say it.

This is in the days before Facebook, so any bit of minutiae that you felt compelled to share with the world, we’d share it via Request Radio.

Like many of the kids listening to the show, I had spent many a night in my room, imagining I was the DJ.

But reality was hitting.  I was about to go on the air for the first time.  There was no practice airshift.  No warm-up.  No air-check critique.  I sat in the studio with Craig, one of the station owners, who had been temporarily hosting the show.  I watched him for an hour, and then he said, “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, you’re ready.  Sit here.”

He was repeating the simple instructions---flip this slider to turn on the microphone, say the name of the station and the name of the last song, say the name of the next song, and gently press “play” on the CD player---but I wasn’t listening.

I had glazed over.

I was giving myself a mental pep talk.  I had been nervous before.  I played sports.  I had been terrified to walk out on a basketball court in front on my entire school and face an intimidating opposing team.  But I also had learned how to set that fear aside, turn it inside out and create the energy and intensity necessary to not only overcome my fear but perform at the top of my game.

I was focused.  I was ready.

The song ended.  I flipped on the microphone.  I followed the instructions.

I said the name of the last song.  I said the name of the next song.  I pressed “play” on the CD player.

The last instruction I did not follow to the letter.  I did not press it “gently.”

Instead, with a burst of adrenaline, I pressed the “play” button so hard that my finger was now inside the machine all the way up past my fingernail.

The good news was that the CD was playing.  The bad news was that it was one of only two CD players in the studio.  Crippling it was going to make it hard to do the rest of the show.

But professional radio folks are nothing if not calm in the face of live mishaps.  Once the next song was underway on the 2nd CD player, Craig got a screwdriver and managed to pry out the button that had become lodged inside the machine.

He set the player right, gave me back the air chair and said:

“Okay, let’s try it again.  Gently.”

And thus, a career began . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.

Garbage "I'm Only Happy When It Rains"

I'm going to make a terrible, shocking professional admission.  One I have never uttered outside the walls of a sound-proof studio.

I DETEST playing requests.

Really.

I'm not saying I won't do it.  If you call up and want to hear something, there is a chance I'll play it.

But there is also a chance that I won't play it.

Now to be clear, even though I am the Program Director, this is not mvyradio policy.

In fact some of the DJ's, like Laurel, enjoy requests.  Jess actively seeks requests.

But not me.  I think requests are fascist.

Seriously.

"I want to hear this song, so everyone now has to hear this song."

Some people call up and request some deep album track.  And while the requester might be totally excited that we are playing some song that was the b-side to an import-only single . . . most of the listening audience is sitting with a question mark above their head wondering what the hell we are playing.

You really, really want to hear Dave Matthews "Ants Marching"?  Well, we played it two hours ago.  I know you missed it, but everyone else who's listening doesn't want to hear it twice.

Then there are the people who call every day and request the same song.  Same song, every day.  Listeners would think I was nutty if, every day, I played "Treetop Flyer" at 2pm.  Every day.

It doesn't help that it seems like an unusually large percentage of the folks who call in requests, are either drunk or off their meds.

At some point on my old radio station, I just stopped playing this damn song by Garbage.  Not because I disliked it.  But because there was this guy who'd always call and request it.  And not only would he request the same song every time we had bad weather, he'd say the same creepy thing in the same creepy way.

"Can I make a request?"

"Sure.  What would you like to hear?"

"Well . . . you know . . . I'm enjoying the storm tonight . . . " he'd say in a low mumble-y gravel, "and I'm only happy when it rains . . .


Hear the song on Youtube.