Your Family Car AM Radio

This goes back a ways, so will probably resonate with only a relatively limited age demographic, but...

Growing up, are there songs of which perhaps your strongest memories are related to hearing them on your family car radio?

For some reason, I vividly recall (fondly) hearing Sunshine Superman and Sunny Afternoon on a 1966 family summer beach trip. Stuck with me all these years.

Also, I remember hearing My Sweet Lord for the first time while on a Christmas shopping excursion with my mom in Fall of 1970.

 

Sunshine of your Love comes to mind.

 

Crimson in Clover!

My dad thought it was just too weird. He wasn’t wrong...it’s gloriously weird!

 

"The Ballad of John and Yoko", because I remember them coming on with this whole explanation about how the station had decided to air it as released without censorship, and my Mom didn't like it. Thanks to AM high fidelity, she also thought the words to "Give Peace a Chance" were "Call me a piggy, and give me some grass".

 

Not a family car radio but I heard "Magical Mystery Tour" (the song) previewed for the first time on either WLS or WCFL sitting in my friends Firebird while we were waiting for his date to come out and then went from there to pick up my date.

 

A Hard Days Night going shopping at Simpson Sears on one fine sunny Saturday with my Dad.

 

Hey Jude. We were traveling by car from Houston to St. Louis. Mom, Dad, my little sister, and me. 1968. I was 10. We were heading to my oldest brother's wedding. He had just gotten back from 2 tours in Vietnam, and his fiancé waited for him. Every time that song came on it was pure joy for me. I imagine my parents got EXTREMELY tired of hearing it, but they would let it play all the way through....each time. I remember it like yesterday. Oh, and my brother is still married to the same lovely girl. Good times.....

 

Living on Long Island we had some NYC AM madness on WABC, same songs over and over. Kung Fu Fighting, Billy Don't Be A Hero, The Playground In My Mind, The Night Chicago Died oh the list goes on, sure miss those days driving around in the 9 passenger Chevy station wagon...

 

Thank you for starting this thread! I vividly recall hearing Papa's Got a Brand New Bag on the am radio in my parents' unairconditioned car in 1965 or 66. I can vivily picture the car's dash, the weather, the heat-I was 8 or 9 and it changed my life.

 

charlie rich 'behind closed doors'' (long road trip in Alaska at night....) probably heard 100 song but that's the one that I remember, weird how that is, your mind picks out one from all the other ones

 

Not AM, but I have many clear memories of hearing music on FM stations in the backseat when I was a kid. My parents had it tuned to rock stations. I think my first musical memory is hearing 'Ramblin' Man' by Allman Brothers Band followed by 'Peace of Mind' by Boston in the backseat when I was a tyke. Would have been in the early '90s.

 

Don't think of it as AM. Think MONO!

 

Don’t think we had a radio in the car

 

I owe my Dad a big debt... long before I really got into music myself I was constantly exposed to my Dad playing the car radio (and the radio in the house as well). This was in the late 60s...I remember in particular a station he would tune in called "Hit Parade", it was an FM station that played both older music and the latest top forty hits. Two songs in particular I remember hearing and liking were "Naturally Stoned" by the Avant Garde and "Time Has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers...plus a host of others. Also remember on the car radio hearing so many great tunes, one that really stands out in my memory was "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell. A few years later I was buying my own records and picking up as many songs as I could get that I'd heard during those years. Thanks, Dad!

 

We listened to WABC AM-77 growing up and I have a distinct memory of my mother racing to change the station whenever Hurricane Smith's "Oh Babe, What Would You Say" came on and we were in the car. My brother was a baby at the time and this song would make him cry, for some reason. Maybe it was the lead vocal tone? Whatever the case, I liked it because I thought it was Jerry Lewis singing, so I was bummed we could never listen to it.

Didn't hear the song again until 22 years later, when the late Joe Donovan played it on his overnight oldies show on WHAS AM-840. This time around, I taped it so I would play it whenever I wanted.

 

I love Naturally Stoned. What a great feel to that recording. Really unique.

 

The absolute first thing that pops in my head, when thinking of this, is hearing the Beatles, for the first time! (I know, I know ).

I have the most vivid memory of asking my mom, "Who is singing that song?", that my five or six year old brain, identified as, "Baby Says She Mine, Because She Said So", ( aka, "I Feel Fine").

 

most likely in my parents '70 Oldsmobile convertible...tuned in WGN 720.

 

Lineman Of The County. Glen Campbell
Let It Ride. BTO

 

This must've been '75 or '76, and I was 11 or so. We usually listened to country, but my folks would occasionally tune in Top 40 for me until they got fed up with it.

I vividly recall America's "Sister Golden Hair" came on and my dad totally cracked up at the line "I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed". My mom was like "why is that funny?".

 

Wichita Lineman, I presume?
Written by the legendary Jimmy Webb!!

 

SHERRY and BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY - those fabulous Buddy Saltzman drum intros

 

Georgie Girl by the Seekers. Late 60's ??

Lot's of Monkees songs especially Last train to Clarksville.

Would have been in my dads Ford LTD or my Mom's Oldsmobile 88

 

See You In September, They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha Ha and Yellow Submarine really stick out in my mind from my rides to school in 1966.

 

My dad bought a 65 Ford Fairlane which had a pretty decent AM radio. It was actually the first solid state radio we ever had in a car.

The song I remember from it is Western Union Man by the Five Americans, which came out after we had the car for a while. I somehow got my dad to let me sit in the car and listen to the radio one day and that song pretty much defines when that was.