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Song on the Radio

"Song on the Radio"
Single by Al Stewart
from the album Time Passages
B-side"A Man for All Seasons"
ReleasedJanuary 1979
GenrePop rock
Length4:10
LabelArista Records 0389
Songwriter(s)Al Stewart
Producer(s)Alan Parsons
Al Stewart singles chronology
"Time Passages"
(1978)
"Song on the Radio"
(1979)
"Midnight Rocks"
(1980)

"Song on the Radio" is a composition by Al Stewart introduced on his 1978 album release Time Passages.[1]

Background

Al Stewart on Song on the Radio
"I was kind of making fun of Arista Records" who had "asked for a mid-tempo ballad with a saxophone...They wanted a song that could be played on the radio, [so] very tongue-in-cheek I wrote...'Song on the Radio'. I thought they'd [get that] I was actually joking, but of course they didn't & ...put it out as a single [which] made the Top 30, [so] the joke was on me because I screwed up a preposition" - referring to the opening lines "I was making my way through the wasteland/ The road into town passes through" which ends with a preposition - "Worse, I used the same word [through] twice in the same sentence."[2]

"Song on the Radio" was released in January 1979 as the second single from the Time Passages album, following the title cut which had been a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100[3] as well as being afforded a ten week tenure at No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.[4]

"Song on the Radio" would peak at No. 29 on the Hot 100[5] and rise as high as No. 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.[6]

In Canada, "Song on the Radio" also peaked at No. 29 on the national hit parade as ranked by RPM magazine[7] whose Adult Contemporary chart afforded the track a peak of No. 3.[8]

Chart performance

References