Ah, the musical hunt – finding that long lost song from your childhood. While I can’t say Reunion’s “Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)” made a great philosophical impression upon me, but it was very unique and memorable, for me and many others who heard Joey Levine’s patter through a ‘who’s who’ of the musical industry of the early seventies.

Patter? That’s the term Wikipedia used to describe the song format. When I was a kid and trying to find this song I would say “he kinda talked fast”. Later I would say “rap but not really rap”. Patter, apparently, it the correct term for this type of song – had I know this it might not have taken me nine years to find it. Other ‘patter songs’ you might know are Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week”, INXS’ “Mediate” (which immediately follows “Need You Tonight” and its unlawful in not to be played together in the state of Nevada) and Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

“Life Is a Rock” was released in the beginning of 1974. It was released as a novelty song though I didn’t think it was funny per se. I thought it was cool. This guy sang so fast and not so much sang but talked through a barrage of lyrics. As soon as you heard one word he was on to the fifth word. Whenever we heard it was playing on the radio we run over to listen – mainly to catch more of the lyrics.

The problem was it was a radio song. We never owned it and if we sang the chorus I don’t remember it. And thus began one of my longest searches for a childhood memory.

As I described in my search for “The Birdman of Alcatrash”, much of a music search centers around the iconic Phonolog. But it has its limits. As a kid, teachers would tell you to use a dictionary to spell a word. What always tripped me up was – how are you supposed to find the word if you don’t know how to spell it? Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the dictionary lists songs alphabetically. Thank God for spell check for terrible spellers like me!

How do you find a song that you don’t know what its called? You talk to the experts and that is usually determined by friends or ego. Next you need to have a base level of information.

This left me incapable of finding “Life is a Rock”. In the nearly 10 years it took me to find this song, whenever I would attempt to describe it it to a ‘music expert’ came out as – “He kind of talks fast but its not rap, he goes “na na na na na nah”, then there’s a chorus, that I don’t remember, but I know in one of the fast parts he says “Doris Day and Jack the Ripper.” The clerk at the record store, or the friend of the friend or the latest ‘music expert’ would just stare me. And when I was done explaining the best I could almost see the literal thought bubble appearing over their head, “you got to be shittin’ me.”

Not to take away any accolades from Todd Hersted, or ‘Harley’ as he wanted to be called, but I would have eventually found “Life Is a Rock” without his help. As I shifted from albums to CD, I began to buy a series from Rhino called “Super Hits of the 70s: Have a Nice Day” and on Volume 13, track 12 my quest would have ended. And I would have been alone downstairs in our first house with the headphones on and Desi sleeping before her weekend morning shift. I would have no one to share the victory of my ended quest – and no story to tell.

As I said, it took me almost ten years to find this song, so this happens far from the eleven year old boy in fifth grade that would hear the song from his parent’s AM car radio or the clock radio in the kitchen of our new house in Des Plaines. When my quest ended, I had just turned twenty one years old, a junior at Carthage College and living a dorm – South Hall.

In one sense, I had become a very different person than the fat shy dinosaur-loving, ghost story-reading, cactus-growing fifth grader that I was. And while these typically drastic years for anyone, most would agree for me these years had been more drastic. And while it may be hard to see the child in the young man I was becoming, the child was alive and well – welded to the core of my frame.

First you need to know who I am or who I have become. I am Waba – a nickname started in Wilmot Junior High. And while it wasn’t surprising the nickname followed me from junior high to high school, it also made the leap to college. By my junior, it was more popular than my real name. It became how I identified my ‘self’.

And like most college juniors, I was too comfortable with myself and suffered from ego and bravado. I also admit my affliction of these ailments was likely worst then most twenty-one year-olds.

College was a great experience for me. I also took some classes there. I’d say I learned about the dangers of liquor, drugs and sex – first hand. OK, not so much of the dangers of sex. I loved the dorm life, a bunch of twenty-somethings living together – what was not to love?

Freshman year we quickly learned about ‘Dorm Storming’ – the aimless wandering through the hallways in any of Carthage’s four dormitories – Tarble, Denhart, Johnson and South. The real purpose was to meet girls, in our case, and to break the boredom of an afternoon or evening. I didn’t really do alot of ‘Dorm Storming’ – mainly because I wasn’t good with girls, but I did well as a wingman.

My Junior year I roomed with Eric Stephen. A six six/six seven Carthage Basketball player from Detroit. He was a Sophomore and we both loved music. One of my strongest memoroes of Eric was while we were waiting for our friends to go to lunch, Eric started dancing around our room to Culture Club with a handkerchief over his head mocking Boy George – he cracked us up. I still smile at that memory.

Earl and I (Eric’s nickname was Earl. Why? Because last year Rusty Stamer said so – and so it was) had the first room on the hallway off the stairs and we were right across from the third floor’s elevator. While it could get noisy on the weekends when everyone was coming home drunk from the bars, it was a great place for groups to gather before they left the floor.

Earl and I had an old bar I stole from our basement setup in front of the window that faced north. We bunk beds that we bought from Kivi (friend who now lived next store) setup on our west wall. My album collection provided the foundation for the stereo on the east wall of our room. Because of where our room was, it was a great social junction and people always stopped in.

Earl and I weren’t the only one with nicknames either. Carthage had a tradition of naming their floors. While fraternity and sorority floors were just named for their particular Greek organizations (Sigs, Dons, Buffs, Kappa Chi, etc), even the independent floors had nicknames. So while the official Carthage College information said Johnson Hall 1A (first Floor, North wing), they were better known by their nicknames. There was Fourth High, The Attic, Mooners, TKD – which stood for Tappa Keg Daily, IPT – which stood for I Phelta Thi (there’s another whole story about changing the name to Johnson Country Club – but very quickly – as incoming freshmen, we were told the floor had a bad reputation and agreed to change the name. That turned out to be a huge mistake perpetuated by current RA – Resident Assistant, who would constantly complain about my music. Well, not the music “but if you could just turn the bass down.” Most of the kids on that floor left the following year). I spent my Sophomore and Junior year on the ‘A B Itch’ floor.

In the idle hours during the week when we weren’t at class or someone else’s room, Earl or I would stand behind the bar playing solitaire and spinning our records. There was one particular March afternoon where the room was filled with bright light from the sunny day outside. But the cold March temperatures still kept us from opening the windows yet. The hallway was quiet since most people were still in class or studying. We weren’t always partying – though your priorities would change as the weekend got closer. Earl was at class so I was behind the bar playing solitaire. Our door was open and I had an album playing. I probably had the volume higher then it should have been.

I was pretty active in the Student Activity Board (SAB) at Carthage. It was my favorite social connection and a easy way to be involved. By Junior year I had found out the SAB facility advisor, Bill Hoare, had a subscription to Billboard magazine. I never understood why he had a subscription, but at $150 a year it was something I could never afford or justify. So when he was done with the current issue he would give it to me. (Sometimes this consisted of pulling it from his inbox, flipping some pages and handing it to me.) So for my Junior and Senior years, I basically had a free subscription to the music industry’s trade magazine. I read every issue cover to cover and used the ads to decorate my dorm room and my room at home. Needless to say, I was very current with my record collection.

So on a sunny but chilly March afternoon, I found myself with a free afternoon so I treated myself to some tunes, some solitaire and a beer. So from my stance behind our bar, I saw Todd Hersted popped through the stairway door and walked passed my noisy room. I had Big Country’s ‘The Crossing’ on the turntable. Thanks to Bill’s Billboard subscription, I had picked it up after Christmas since it was topping the British Chart. Typical for me, it was too loud for Todd to talk and with something between a salute and a wave, he quickly passed my door and continued down the hallway. And I went back to my beer, solitaire game and Big Country.

As I was trying to figure my next solitaire move, when Todd appeared in my doorway. Todd Hersted was Mike Hackbaugh’s ‘townie friend’. ‘Townies’ were students that didn’t live in the dorm and commuted to school. Us dorm kids looked down on Townies. I’m sure the townie kids looked down on Dorm Kids as a bunch of spoiled brats but Carthage didn’t really have an off-campus living space so most townies were kids that still lived at home.

Todd waited as I jumped around the bar to turn the music down so he could talk.

“Hey,” Todd said, “I’m supposed to meet Mike at 3:00 but he’s not there, is it cool if I hang out here until he back?”

“Yea, yea, that’s cool,” I told him.

Todd was ok. He typically wore a black leather coat over his t-shirt and jeans. He wore his brown hair a little longer and blown back. He looked like an eighties version of Lief Garrett. He thought he was a ladies man, and from his work at the bars that I had seen, he was. His nickname was Harley but no one ever called him that, in fact, I didn’t even know if he had a motorcycle, let alone a Harley.

Some kids had their shit together, Mike Hackbarth was one of those kids. I don’t think grades came easy to him but he worked hard and most of the time it paid off. On the other side, Mike wasn’t shut-in either – he was one of the guys I would see at the bars and hang with. Mike worked hard and played hard.

I don’t know how Todd and Mike met or much about their relationship, but Todd was over alot. Everyone on AB Itch had gotten used to Todd’s presence so I wasn’t surprised when he showed up at my door.

“So what’s going on?” I asked. It was a Guy Rule to ask a useless question after they’ve just explained why they are visiting you.

“Nothing, you?” anther Guy Rule – a stupid question should be followed by something completely useless as well.

“Just chillin’, listening to Big Country.” And though you would be right to think I was a music sob, I really did listen to everything. My problem was that I didn’t really care if other people didn’t care. I just tried to impress people with the latest bands so in six months I could say, ‘yea, they were so six months ago.’

“Yea, they sound really cool.”

“Have you heard of them?” I asked.

“Yea, I think so. They do that ‘Wish’ song?”

“No, their first single is ‘In a Big Country’.” I was starting to smell bullshit but just in case I got up and grab the album cover and handed it to Todd. He took the cover because that’s what people do when you shove things in their face.

“I picked this up during Christmas break. They are from Ireland…” and I pattered on their chart performance and how I had to get this album as soon as it was released in the United States. Todd flipped the cover over a few times and nodded at the appropriate moments.

“Yes, they sound really cool,” he told me.

“Here’s the first single,” and I got up, flipped the album over and dropped the needle on the first track.

“Oh yea, I know this song. They do this song? Wow, this is a great song!”

I beamed in turning on another person on to a new song not realizing yet I was sucking from Todd’s tit of bullshit. This guy was good. Todd air guitared at the right spots and I stood tapping to the drumbeat satisfied at my latest conversion – unaware of the bullshit dripping down the side of my face.

‘In a Big Country’ ended and was followed by ‘Inwards’. “This song’s ok,” I rated.

Todd reached over and turned the volume down so we could talk. I HATE when people turn my music down. My room, my rules. I just saw Todd’s visit getting shorter.

“You got homework? I don’t want to keep you if you’re studying,” he said.

I knew that was bullshit. Todd knew that was bullshit – he saw my beer on the bar and I already told him I was chilling. And after he turned down my music. I think it was time to separate from Todd. I got up and when back behind the bar to my solitaire game.

“No, I’m good, just some reading I’ll do have supper.” I picked up the cards to look at where I was with my game.

“Hey, you got another one?” Todd pointing to my bottle sitting on the bar.

Ah, now I know the real reason Todd stopped in. He wanted a beer. Suddenly I felt the bullshit on the side of my face. And even if I wiped it away, we both knew I spent the last ten minutes not realizing it was there. Son of a bitch, Todd got me. I could have said I didn’t have anymore but that would have been a lie. And that would have meant I couldn’t have another and my current one was almost gone. And I had just bought a case with deposit bottles, I was trapped.

“Sure” and I reached down into the frig and grabbed two Old Milwaukees, prided their caps off and handed one to Todd as he met me at the bar.

“Cheers,” Todd said and raised his bottle. I reluctantly bounced my bottle off of his. He had a big shit-eating grin on his face because he knew he had won. His whole mannerism changed. I think he completely forgot about the fact that Mike could be coming any minute and he had a full bottle of beer. However, I had seen Todd at the bars enough to know he would finish his beer if Mike walked up the stairway right now. This is why Todd had stopped in.

“You’re taking Marketing, right?” he asked.

“Yea, we just turned in our position paper last week. Johnson said we’ve got to select our product or service for a presentation by the end of the month. You have Johnson?”

“Nah, I couldn’t fit marketing in this semester. I’ve got to take English II again to fill a dimension,” Todd said.  Todd seemed to have trouble fitting a lot of courses in.

“Yea, I’ve got my dimensions filled for the most part. Death and Dying for religion next year and Science with Astronomy this semester.”

“Your taking Astronomy?” Todd asked.

I couldn’t tell the way Todd asked if the ‘what a dork’ was implied or if he possibly was impressed. And while I was trying to decide we both noticed that The Crossing had ended.

“‘The Storm’ is one of my favorite songs off this,” I said as I walked around the bar.

“Yea it was good,” Todd returned. We both knew neither of us had been listening and he wasn’t really listening to the album at all. He took a long swig from his beer.

“‘Harvest Home’ was released as a single but it didn’t really do well,” I said as I flipped the album over and started the other side. “I do like how they use the bagpipes, especially in this song. They’re from Ireland.”

“Yea, you mentioned that.”

We listened as Big Country did indeed play their guitars and bagpipes off each other. Todd was actually listening and turned back to me and his beer as I got behind the bar again.

“Why don’t they make songs that sound really cool anymore?” Todd asked.

“You mean like Van Halen?” I pictured Todd as a headbanger though he didn’t really wear bands shirts.

“No, songs that that had a cool sound.”

“Like a cool guitar riff or something?” I asked. If I didn’t know any better, I was going to have my first music conversation with Todd Hersted.

“It doesn’t have to be a guitar, it could just singing.”

“Vocals, or keyboard”

“Yea”

“Like Queen? ‘Under Pressure’ was cool.”

Yes, stuff like that”

“You mean a hook, a gimmick”

“Yea, something cool so you want to hear the song again.” I think Todd was saying he didn’t want to hear Big Country again.

“‘Jump’ has a cool hook with the keyboard. Van Halen has never done keyboards before,” I offered.

“Yea but don’t a lot of bands have keyboards in their songs now?”

“True, especially new wave.”

“‘Jump’ is good and all but I’m talking like in the old days.”

“Like with Zepplin and Hendrix?”

“No, more like Leo Sayer and Blue Suede”

“Leo Sayer,” I repeated. “I remember him, from the seventies.”

“Yea”

“Who’s Blue Suede?” I asked.

“Ooga chuka, ooga chuka, ” Todd started singing.

“Oh, yea duh, I couldn’t remember who actually did that song.”

“Now that was a great song,” Todd pronounced, “better than this stuff.”

Wait a minute, I think he just dissed my Big Country. “Well, there’s more to music then ‘ooga chuka, ooga chuka‘, I don’t think they every had any other songs.”

“Do these guys?” Todd asked nodding to the turntable? Touche Todd, touche…

“Well its only their first album.”

“The seventies had some great fucking tunes. Hey, do you have another one? ” Todd wiggled his empty bottle at me.

Funny how the swearing rises with your buzz. But I also understood what he was saying. There was some great music in the seventies.

“Did you ever hear ‘In the Year 2525?” I asked.

“Yea, that was cool. ‘In the 2525,'” Todd start singing to his bottle “If woman can survive, they may find, in the year 2525.”

“Yea, I remember a friend of mine in grade school turned me on that. Randy Paluka, or something like that. He had the classic seventies basement. Bean bag chairs, the long beads in the doorway. He had the 45. What a great song.”

“I remembering hearing in my dad’s car. He really liked it but he liked that song.”

“My parents mostly listed to country music – or WGN”

“Yea, my dad was a rocker. I remember,” and Todd started singing “Hold your head up, yeah, hold your head, yeah, hold you head, ahhh.“

“Yea, that was great song.”

“Do you know who did that?” Todd asked.

“No,” I couldn’t even fake a guess.

“Argent,” Todd answered, “those guys could rock”

“Like Golden Earring, and radar lov uv‘,” I sang back. I guess the beer was loosening me up too. Todd grabbed his drumsticks and picked up my air guitar and finished, “durge durge da durge.”

“Hey, do you have any old seventies stuff with all those albums under there?” Todd asked pointing to my record crates. “This ‘Little Country’ just isn’t cutting it.” That was the second time he dissed them.

“I’ve got a bunch of 45’s at home but I don’t bring them up. My brother and I used to go in together and buy the #1 song each week, back when I was in Junior High.”

Todd gave me a weird look, “You could some lame songs that way, like ‘Muskrat Love’.”

“Actually, we did buy that.” Todd laughed “We also got England Dan and John Ford Coley.”

“I’d Really Love To See You Tonight”

“Yep, ‘Devil Women’?”

“Cliff Richard”

“Very good, ‘Slow Dancing, Swaying to the Music’?”

Todd looked down at the bar trying to read the linoleum, “Johnny Rivers!”

“Damn, you know your seventies.”

“Black Betty?” Todd asked.

“Ram Jam”

“Fox On The Run?” he challenged.

“Sweet, and their other singles?” I asked back.

“‘Ballroom Blitz’ and ‘Love is Like Oxygen’,” and took a step back to point at me in his ‘gotcha stance’.

“And…?”

“Well, those were their big hits,” he said.

“There’s one more,” I urged.

“A big song?” he questioned.

“I would say it was a top ten hit”

“By ‘Sweet’? no way”

“You’ll kick yourself when I tell you.”

“And I’ll know it?” Todd asked.

“Definitely”

Todd struggled a little longer. Even the linoleum wasn’t helping him. Finally gave up. “Alright, tell me.”

“Little Wily”

“No shit?”

“Their first single. ‘Little willy willy won’t go home, you can’t catch willy cause willy won’t go, little willy willy won’t – go home’,” I sang and Todd joined in.

“Can I have one more? Todd asked.

I was in a good mood and we were having a good time, so I reached back in the frig for another beer for each of us.

“Last one, ” I told him.

“Yea, yea, that’s it”

I settled back behind the bar. “There’s some old seventies songs I can never find.”

“Try me.”

“Well, I’ve got two left. I found the right song but I haven’t found the actual 45 yet.”

“What song?”

“‘Those Were the Days’ really old, maybe even sixties.”

“Yea, I know that one but not who sang it.”

“I’m still looking for ‘The Birdman of Alcatraz’, know it?”

“How does it go?”

“I don’t remember. Its been so long ago but ‘birdman of Alcatraz’ is the chorus”

In his best Jack Nicholas Shining imitation, Todd said, “How the FUCK! am I going to help you, if you don’t know how the Fuck it goes?”

I laughed. “The other one is kinda like the Birdman, I don’ t know how it goes. It has this chorus, but I don’t know how it goes but the guys talks really fast, just a whole bunch of words and stuff. The only ones I remember is ‘Doris Day and Jack the Ripper‘.”

Todd looked at me and said , “I think I know that one.”

“Really? what’s it called?”

“Did it go like this – ‘B.B. Bumble and the Stingers, Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers, Lonnie Mack and twangin’ Eddy, here’s my ring we’re goin’ steady.”

Holy shit.

And Todd kept going, “Take it easy, take me higher, liar liar, house on fire Locomotion, Poco, Passion, Deeper Purple, Satisfaction, Baby baby gotta gotta gimme gimme gettin’ hotter, Sammy’s cookin’, Lesley Gore and Ritchie Valens, end of story'”

“Oh my God!” I yelled “Who is it?”

Todd ignored me and kept going, “‘Mahavishnu, fujiyama, kama-sutra, rama-lama, Richard Perry, Spector, Barry, Archies, Righteous, Nilsson, Harry Shimmy shimmy ko-ko bop and Fats is back and Finger Poppin”

“Stop, stop, ” I begged, “what song is it?” I was almost in tears.

Todd started the chorus and his eyes got larger like he was trying to beam the answer to me, “‘Life is a rock but the radio rolled me, Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me, whoa whoa whoa whoa, Life is a rock but the radio rolled me, At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie.’“

“Oh My God!” I said, “‘Life is a Rock’?”

“‘Life is a Rock But the Radio Rolled Me’ by Reunion, Todd said.

“That is incredible. You know all those lyrics?”

And Todd started again and this time I just let him go, “‘FM, AM, hits are clickin’ while the clock is tock-a-tickin’, Friends and Romans, salutations, Brenda and the Tabulations, Carly Simon, I behold her, Rolling Stones and centerfoldin’, Johnny Cash and Johnny Rivers, can’t stop now, I got the shivers, Mungo Jerry, Peter Peter Paul and Paul and Mary Mary, Dr. John the nightly tripper, Doris Day and Jack the Ripper,’“

I pointed to Todd and smiled.

“‘Gotta go Sir, gotta swelter, Leon Russell, Gimme Shelter, Miracles in smokey places, slide guitars and Fender basses, Mushroom omelet, Bonnie Bramlett, Wilson Pickett, stop and kick it. Life is a rock but the radio rolled me, Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me, whoa whoa whoa whoa, Life is a rock but the radio rolled me, At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie. Arthur Janov’s primal screamin’, Hawkins, Jay and Dale and Ronnie, Kukla, Fran and Norma Okla, Denver, John and Osmond, Donny, JJ Cale and ZZ Top and LL Bean and De De Dinah, David Bowie, Steely Dan and sing me prouder, CC Rider, Edgar Winter, Joanie Sommers, Osmond Brothers, Johnny Thunders, Eric Clapton, pedal wah-wah, Stephen Foster, do-dah do-dah, Good Vibrations, Help Me Rhonda, Surfer Girl and Little Honda, Tighter, tighter, honey, honey, sugar, sugar, yummy, yummy, CBS and Warner Brothers, RCA and all the others. Life is a rock but the radio rolled me, Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me, whoa whoa whoa whoa, Life is a rock but the radio rolled me, At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie.”

Holy shit. This guy just did this entire song I’ve been looking for over nine years. Later it would hit me the sheer talent involved in memorizing the whole thing let alone doing the whole patter.

“How did you do that?” I asked. It was a stupid question but all I could think to ask.

Todd explained, “When I was a kid I thought it was a cool song and worked on it until I had the whole thing memorized.”

Suddenly Mike was at my door. “Hey Todd, you ready?”

“Yea sure, ” he called back. Mike had already disappeared back to his room. “I’ve got the 45, I’ll bring it for you.” He downed his beer as fast as the bottle would allow and put it on the bar.

“That was awesome, thanks” was all I could manage.

“Thanks for the beer, later” and pointed at me as he made his exit.

Todd did bring me the 45 a few days later but even though I played it a dozen times it didn’t compare to the memory of his performance that buzzy March afternoon.

Later in life, I would find some people, myself included, would find a trick or two they would perfect and deliver to an audience. I figured Todd had a number of tricks that would use to impress the girls. And when you had a new audience it was amazing but repeated performances only dulled the shine.

I never saw Todd do Reunion’s “Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled)” again. But thereafter, whenever I heard that song I would picture Todd singing to his bottle in my college dorm room and when the chorus came a fat nine year boy would join him with a big old round smile on his face.