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In the days before Rock'N'Roll

The Sunday Challenge = Your interpretation of an individual song or piece of music.
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My alltime favorite Van Morrison created this song, a poem that's tells the story how he got inspired by certain artists: Radio played a crucial role In-the-days-before-rock-n-roll .


At YouTube: In the days before rock and roll

At Soundcloud: In-the-days-before-rock-n-roll

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I am down on my knees
At those wireless knobs
Telefunken, Telefunken
And I'm searching for
Luxembourg, Luxembourg,
Athlone, Budapest, AFN,
Hilversum, Helvetia
In the days before rock 'n' roll


In the music fragment you can hear the typical tuning-nois between 5":05 and 5":15

The song lists singers who influenced the youthful Van Morrison including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Elvis, Fats, Sonny, Lightning and above all Ray Charles, the high priest. He also refers to Radio Luxembourg to which thousands of British and Irish teenagers in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s would tune in to on their primitive radios, despite the poor reception, because it played the pop music they wanted to hear.

Irish poet Paul Durcan, who co-wrote this song, provides the spoken vocals on this track. In 1988 Durcan wrote: "Myself, if I was Minister for Education, I'd bring in a new curriculum in the morning and top of my list would be Kavanagh and Morrison. All of Kavanagh and Morrison - not my selection or Saint Augustine's selection or Barry McGuigan's selection or Dean Martin's selection but the entire oeuvre and let the audience pick out what they like and what they don't like."
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13 comments

LutzP said:

omg, what a treasure, does it still work! Looks almost like a slide rule ;-))
5 years ago

Jan said:

Excellent image. Love it !
5 years ago ( translate )

M♥rJ Photogr♥phy !!… said:

This is really cool Luc, LoVe it + I remember TRYING to listen to Radio Luxembourg. !!!!
5 years ago

Wierd Folkersma said:

beautiful the old radio, remember so well.
I was very impressed by his first album Astral Weeks and love the album he has made with John Lee Hooker-
5 years ago

Sami Serola (inactiv… said:

Great to see someone else listening SoundCloud! =D There is a lot of nice music to find =)

Great shot! Brings me good memories when I was listening Radio Luxembourg on rather similar radio like this.
5 years ago

Clickity Click said:

Wonderful contribution for the challenge Luc. I even remember some songs that came before rock and roll. lol Of course remember Muddy Waters, Jerry Lee Lewis and who could forget Little Richard?
5 years ago

Esther said:

Wow! I've never seen a radio like this before.
5 years ago ( translate )

Coco said:

Blown away. Love the photo. Wonderful memories.
5 years ago

Gillian Everett said:

Gentle music and fascinating lyrics, great choice
5 years ago ( translate )

Gudrun said:

Pure nostalgia! I also remember Radio Luxemburg;-)
5 years ago

╰☆☆June☆☆╮ said:

Excellent, well done.
Have a great day.....
5 years ago ( translate )

Stevia said:

Yes, these were yet modest times, but one were happy to own such a radio. My parents also had such a device. I can remember, the "display" was very similar to this view. The sound of the radio was also very good! My parents however did not listen to the Rock 'n' Roll music, even though at the time he was slowly sloshing over from the US to Germany. ;-)
A good idea for the challenge!
5 years ago