Songs that the transistor radio was made for

Admittedly; this is generational... but the idea translates I think. In a recent thread it was revealed that many; a large percentage of those who responded, identified their primary musical direction and subsequent love of and appreciation for music as their being given a transistor radio at an early age. A usually innocuous little box that brought a new liberating world to them. The other discernible influence was being brought up in a family; a home surrounded by music; but that's not the question posed in this thread.

I do realize sentimentality with be an influencer to some extent; but what songs; in your opinion were made to be listened to over that small usually rectangular box little that "went everywhere with us"...

...and still to this day sound better; "more correct" in Low Low Low Fi.

I'll begin with:

Summer In The City - The Lovin' Spoonful

Good Lovin' - The Rascals

Satisfaction - The Stones

Help Me Rhonda - The Beach Boys

Little Bit 'O Soul - The Music Explosion

Leader Of The Pack - The Shangri-Las

It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want to) - Leslie Gore

I Want To Hold Your Hand / She Loves You - The Beatles

Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison

Bernadette - The 4 Tops

Rag Doll - The 4 Seasons

I Fought The Law (and the law won) - The Bobby Fuller 4

This Dimond Ring - Gary Lewis and the Playboys


And... this is a tough one after hearing it in beautiful DCC sound... Light My Fire - The Doors


And non-musical - The World Series

 

I could add
Under the Boardwalk and Up on the Roof Top - The Drifter
Downtown - Petula Clark
Ferry Across the Mersey- Gerry and the Pacemakers
I Fought the Law - Bobby Fuller Four
I'm Henry the Eight - Hermans Hermits
The Rain, the Park, and Other Things and Indian Lake - The Cowsills
We'll Sing in the Sunshine - Gale Garnet
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks

 

Really, any Phil Spector produced single. Put em on your home stereo...blech.

Hear them on the transistor radio...ooooh!

 

Motown
Spector
Stax

 

Canned Heat - Going Up The Country
Cream - Sunshine Of Your Love

Always looked forward to hearing these 2 on 93 KHJ out of Los Angeles. Went to bed many nights with the transistor radio under the pillow.

 

Raspberries - "Go All The Way"

 

Pearls Before Swine - (Oh Dear) Miss Morse

 

Dramatics
What u see is what u get. Those were the days. Mary Hopkin.

 

I dunno, the geezers in the FCC might have caught on to the beeps. As Fenderesq said, the Rascals were MADE for car radio.

 

I Feel Fine/She’s A Woman US 45 mix
More reverb please!

 

Yeah, for me anything in that 1964-66 era...

 

I got mine late in 1963 so anything from that era (the next few years) is fine!

 

Really, anything from The 5th Dimension.

 

I'm older than you guys I guess. I most remember listening to stuff like Purple People Eater and Buchanan and Goodman's The Flying Saucer on my first transistor.
I don't really think serious music benefits from the tinny sound.

 

I've read that after producing a track he would play it over a transistor radio to see how it sounded.

 

Surf City
Light'ning Strikes
The Loco Motion
Baby Love
Valerie
Rag Doll
Apache
Telstar

 

Andy Kim "Baby I Love You"

Sounded great on radios big and small, car radios and jukeboxes too...

 

Great list... everyone of them!

 

We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet - The Blues Magoos

 

99 Tears - ? and the Mysterians

 

Expressway To Your Heart - The Righteous Brothers

Cara Mia - Jay and the Americans

Dirty Water - The Standells

...yeah milankey pretty much got it right.


*Weak thread; will do better next time. fenderesq

 

Yeah... you pretty much got it right.

 

Transistor Sister - Freddy Cannon

 

No Matter What - Badfinger
Signs - Five Man Electrical Band
Ride Captain Ride - Blues Image
Up Around the Bend- CCR

 

Any single from 1964 until 1968. Then stereo got more sofisticated.