Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best And Worst Comments

I would rather listen to an original recording than a cover version or a song written by a team of songwriters.

More often than not, I’d turn on the radio and play with Hot Wheels. WEBC channel 56 out of Duluth, was my constant companion. My AM transistor radio that I bought with lawn-mowing money was tuned to the one station that played the variety I liked. AM radio always sounded better in the winter. There was less static, and AM radio waves could travel farther. Music sounded as crisp as the cold night air.

No song sounded better to me that winter, than Everyday People. WEBC played a variety, but the variety was relatively white washed. Yes, The Supremes were played, and the bigger Motown hits, but black records weren’t that common on the airwaves unless they were top 10 mega-hits. Everyday People sounded massive on my tiny radio. Now I wonder if it was engineered to make the most of the limited AM sound. It’s one of the first songs that made me stop and take notice. I am convinced that WEBC was early on playing it, because I can remember listening to it, while the Christmas tree lights illuminated the darkness.

I can also remember how it fit into my world view at the time. I remember my grandmother’s racist comments about civil rights, as much as I remember my parents telling me how wrong she was. I remember the previous spring and summer when friends told me that their parents were “happy” about the death of Martin Luther King Jr. My hometown was as white as the snow that blankets Northern Minnesota, and the racism was just as deep. I remember a classmate talking about the screeching of Aretha Franklin. It shouldn’t have surprised me later when he shared racists memes on Facebook.

So, for that moment when Sly exhorted “We got to live together,” over a strong track, Everyday People was, is and always will be a 10/10 in my book.