I was a teen once. And was I ever strange -- at least by today's standards.
I didn't wear oversized jeans. I didn't have any tattoos. I didn't have short hair. I didn't like sports, unless it was track and field. I didn't have piercings. And I didn't wear outrageous rising footwear -- although it might have made me look taller.And unlike teens of the present, my friends and I thought it was an event that a bit of profanity made it to the radio.
These days, hearing four-letter words on the air is just routine -- especially with artists (and I use that term liberally) such as Kid Rock, Eminem, Marilyn Manson, just to name a few.
But back in the late '70s, and in Wichita, Kan., where I lived, it was a rare thing for something more harsh than the ol' "D" word to make it on the air. I mean, even the Eagles' "Life In the Fast Lane" was edited for AM radio back then.
Well, I had a group of renegade friends who loved to listen to the Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" (I think I've already told about that one) and that other sharp-tongued call for good ol' hometown unity, "In America."
But the cuss words in those songs weren't anywhere close to what the Who laid on the public in the epic hit "Who Are You." Yep, that abrasive classic Hollywood curse, the one that starts with an "F."
One night, when my friend's parents weren't home, a group of us were listening to KICT-95 -- the equivalent to Rock 99 here.
I had remembered hearing about the rumor that the dreaded word could be heard twice in the latter part of the song. So, like the "rebellious rocker" everyone thought I was, I told my rowdy friends about the word. They didn't believe me. So I called the radio request line and asked to hear "Who Are You."
My friends and I sat and waited. Jimi Hendrix, Boston, Blue Oyster Cult, Nazareth and Jefferson Starship played through and then a slew of commercials. Then, approximately 30 minutes after we made the request, on came the bubbling "Who Are You" intro.
"OK, guys, listen," I said.
The funny thing was, they did. I mean all five of us were quiet as a stone (not what you think), just staring at the speakers. As the song went on, we all got a bit restless and began to whisper and make wisecracks. But when it came time for the chorus, one of us would hush everyone else.
Of course, the song runs more than seven minutes. So having a room full of kids -- a majority of whom were later identified with attention deficit disorder when that diagnosis became chic -- quiet and listening intently to this extremely long song was almost a miracle.
Anticipation.
Boy did the Who make us wait.
Then, there was the two-minute keyboard interlude. That nearly made us crazy.
Finally, we could hear the chorus again.
"Man, when is it going to happen?" one of my friends asked.
You guessed it. It was then.
We missed it.
We missed the swearing.
We missed the rush.
We missed the chance to give each other high fives because we thought we were being naughty.
"Hey, we've still got one more chance," said one of my other friends at the exact time the "word" was repeated.
We missed it -- again -- in the same song.
We were bummed.
So, we did what any other teenager in Wichita would do on a school night.
We called the request line again.
Boy, teenagers do the strangest things.