I went to the usually very funny and faux-informative Adult Ed lecture series last night (in the bar that sort of banned strollers OMG). A couple of my friends were reading from their war books about murder and manhunts. They were good but not very funny at all, but the final presenter was Ken Freedman, station manager at the really quite awesome WFMU. He brought out a series of the kind of arcane recordings that has few people listening but everyone liking his station.
The theme: Hyperpatriotic hit singles
The best song: An Open Letter to My Teenage Son (1967) by a very different type of radio DJ, Victor Lundberg. It’s a stentorian warning to a son who wants to know whether it’s right to burn his Vietnam draft card.
The best lines:
“I would remind you that your mother will love you no matter what you do. Because she is a woman.”
“If you decide to burn your draft card, then burn your birth certificate at the same time. Because from that moment, I have no son.”
Ouch.
This was actually a top ten single, sold a million records and won a Grammy. Freedman also tracked down a couple songs that were released in response to Lundberg: one from the Southie-voiced Robert Tamlin is on WFMU’s blog here.
In the meantime, rest assures that my children will be hearing this a lot over the next 40 or so years: “Your mother will love you no matter what you do. Because she is a woman.”
Yikes. Sh*t My Dad Says, indeed.