Why letting go of radio makes me a little sad

"If you don't like what's on country radio, just don't listen to it. Listen to *insert online music site* instead."

It's a fair argument. I've always been of the mind if you don't like something, just don't bother with it. Do your own thing and to each their own. I haven't listened to country radio or any radio (except classic rock in the car with my husband) since that gawdawful Country Girls Shake it (for the Groundhogs) or whatever song took hold. In hindsight, I guess I saw which way the wind was blowing. At the time it was just, "well, this sucks!" *click*

It's not a huge deal. I listen to several different genres from several different decades. I even get into occasional new music thanks to sites like savingcountrymusic.com. I don't do streaming sites, partly because half the time I try to use a site here in Canada I get DENIED, but mostly because I'm happy with my post-radio way of hearing music. Listen on youtube, buy on iTunes if I like it. Pretty simple.

So my issue isn't a shortage of music, though I imagine I'd get into much more new stuff if a better quality was played on the radio. Now more than ever, I feel like there's tons of good music I'll never hear simply because there's so much on the internet and I don't have time to wade through it all. Radio used to serve as a kind of handy delivery service. So that's one of the things I miss about it.

But my main argument for radio is an emotional one, not necessarily rational, and hard to put into words. As an 80s kid it was a HUGE part of my life growing up, and continued to be into adulthood. There's a little hole in my life where radio used to be. It's not a huge hole, it doesn't affect my life in a big way and I don't think of it often, but it's there. It's one more piece of what used to be me that's been lost.

Here, maybe this song can explain it better.



"She's got a radio heart
She loves the songs they play,
They take him off her mind
She's got a radio heart
It helps fill an empty space
He left behind

She gets lost in a steel guitar
Oh it's her way out
When the heartache starts
She's found a little salvation
On a local station
She's got a radio heart"

My circumstance isn't the same as the girl in the song, no kids or heartache, but the concept of radio as salvation rings completely true to me. I had a hard time in school, and my best memories of that time are listening to the radio late at night in my room. It allowed me to feel like a part of something bigger and better, at a time when I felt small. In my late teens and twenties when I was feeling down, I'd put on the country station and just drive, and I always felt better. Radio saved me many times in intangible ways. Listening on the internet is okay, but it is definitely not the same. It's more isolated; the feeling of being connected to something is gone.

Yeah, I love how I can make one huge, giant mixtape now and listen to it for days. Seriously great. But I still miss the "I hope they play my favorite song next," the anticipation of hearing a new song from my favorite artist the first time, the deejay lulling me to sleep late at night. Somehow things were just a bit bigger, and more romantic, on the radio.