blaise rascal posted:

Years ago, I was driving around & switching through stations on my car radio. Eventually I settled on a station playing an old-timey, scratchy recording that I recognized as an instrumental version of Tea For Two, a 1925 pop song by Youmans and Caesar. I was amazed and excited, because I didn't think there was a station around me that played Great American Songbook standards. I recalled reading about this song in the book American Popular Song by Alec Wilder, and also hearing Michael Feinstein discuss it in an interview. I happily absorbed the characteristic sound of this time period; a time when songs had blues chords, and modulated themselves in creative ways, and always managed to come back to a diatonic resolution. And I couldn't help but smile as I recalled the lyrics of this particular song, brimming with optimism and clever wordplay. For reference, the following is approximately what I heard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kMEPYU1Xwg

Then, all of a sudden, a voice on the radio said, "Boy, this music SUCKS, huh? It's a good thing that you're listening to EXTREME ROCK STATION 103.9, because we would NEVER play lovely music like this!" At this point, Tea for Two faded away, and an electric guitar solo started playing. The voice continued: "Stay tuned to 103.9, your home for REAL AWESOME music, not that lovely stuff the OTHER stations play!"

This is a true story. It taught me a lot about how I stand in relation to the rest of society.