Songs on the radio take you back

There's just something special about listening to music on the radio. Ever since I was a kid in the Cleveland suburbs, listening to light rock 106.5 or WMJI, there was a wonderful feeling when a great song came on, especially when riding in a car. You could buy the song — or the album that had the song — on a cassette tape or compact disc, but for some reason, it never sounded quite as good as when it came over on an FM dial. Nowadays, you don't really need the radio to hear a song you like, even when your driving. There's Amazon Music, Pandora and Spotify, where you can call up a song, sometimes with a voice command. In the old days, you'd call a radio station and request a tune. Now, you just ask Alexa. It's efficient. It's easy. And, yet, it misses something. I remember as a child, how excited I'd get when Huey Lewis and the News' "The Power of Love" would come on the radio (it was my favorite song when I was 6), or how, even a decade later, feeling really happy when The Looking Glass' "Brandy" came on. I was deeply into 1960s and '70s rock by that point. It's not just our imagination that songs sound better on the radio. Radio stations use can certain sound techniques to enhance tracks. Radio magic just isn't a feeling. It's calculated. But one thing about listening to the radio is, you give up control. You aren't picking the songs. The DJ — or whatever passes for one these days — chooses them. You don't pick the specific song, the song arrives. On Thursday, I made a conscious effort to keep my car radio on one station — in this case, Classic Vinyl on Sirius XM — and just listen. Classic Vinyl is — as the name suggests — classic radio rock. You'll hear the Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin and music from the album era of rock from the 1960s and '70s. I should also note that Thursday was my 44th birthday. Birthdays have a way of making you emotional. You hear from friends and family, and you feel — for a day at least — kind of special. But as you get older, birthdays can also be kind of sad. It's not because I'm getting older. That really doesn't bother me so much. It's more that while you hear from lots of people, there are others — aunts, uncles, some old friends — who are no longer around. You used to hear from them all the time. Now, you don't. You can't. That's what hit me when Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" came on as I was driving to Mount Blanchard to take pictures at a track meet. I thought about my Uncle Lee, a wonderful man, who died in December. I thought about my friend Joe, an inspiration to so many, who passed away a few weeks before that. Good memories came back, and wonderful feelings. But also, feelings of loss. On the way back to the office, a song came on that took me back. This one was "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne. There's plenty of lines in that song that resonate, but one in particular hit me like a lightning bolt: "In '69 I was 21, and I called the road my own," Browne sings. "I don't know when that road turned on to the one I'm on." I've been a professional sports writer for 20 years, starting in Kenton back in 2004. You go to a lot of different schools, and travel a number of different roads. You meet a lot of people, see a ton of games, write a ton of stories from all over the state and beyond. And yet, after two decades, I found myself going to Riverdale High School: One of the first places I went as a rookie reporter in Kenton. Life takes you back sometimes. It makes you think. So do the songs on the radio. Baker is sports editor of The Courier.