Behind the Lyrics:On the Radio

Behind the Lyrics

 * Donna Summer dreams of connecting with a long lost love on her 1979 hit “On the Radio”
 * The song produced by Italian disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder, who was behind many of Summer’s hits, including “I Feel Love” and “Last Dance”

Lyrics

 * “Someone found a letter you wrote me on the radio. And they told the world just how you felt”
 * “It must have fallen out of a hole in your old brown overcoat. They never said your name, but I knew just who they meant”

Behind the Lyrics

 * Summer told NPR that she tried to write this song for almost a month
 * “Giorgio had given me the track, and I said, ‘Giorgio, did you have anything in mind when you wrote this track?’”
 * “And he kept saying, ‘Well, something with the radio.’ And I said ‘okay,’ and I pondered it for three weeks
 * “I couldn’t come up with a word, nothing, and I gave the track to Bruce, my husband- at the time my boyfriend -and I said, ‘Honey, please try to write this.’”

Lyrics

 * “On the radio woah-oh-oh-oh, on the radio woah oh-oh-oh”

Behind the Lyrics

 * Summer: “And so one day I was in the studio, and it was a day I was supposed to be recording something else, and I was sitting at the piano”
 * “Stephen Bishop’s record was on the top of the piano and I know Stephen and we’ve written together”
 * “I’m like, ‘How would Stephen say this? What line would he come up with? He’s so clever.’”
 * “All of a sudden, this one line came to me. It was ‘must have fallen out of a hole in your old brown overcoat,’ and it was like a lightning bolt
 * “I knew who the person was. I knew who the person was in the song. I knew what she was going through. I knew what had to be said”

Lyrics

 * “Woah oh-oh-oh-oh. Yeah, it kinda made me feel proud when I heard him say”
 * “You couldn’t find the words to say it yourself. And now in my heart, I know I can say what I really feel”

Behind the Lyrics

 * Summer: “When I got all of the personal information on the character, I was able to go into the studio and sing the song pretty much verbatim- the way you hear it”
 * “I don’t know how many takes I did that day, but I don’t think I did very many, and I think I got most of the song in the first take”
 * “It was about having that story in my psyche and being able to go on there and sing it from that person’s perspective- once I got the perspective, I was ridin’”
 * “I think that I just did that spontaneously- I just think it came out”
 * “I don’t think I planned it, you know, but just probably needed something there”
 * The song turned out to be a big hit on the radio-it became Summer’s tenth top 10 single.
 * The song originally appeared on the soundtrack for the 1980 Adrian Lyne teen drama ‘Foxes’, starring Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, and Cherie Currie
 * It was also included on Summer’s first international compilation ‘On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II’
 * Instrumental portions of the song were featured in ‘The Price is Right’ in the early ‘80s

Lyrics

 * “If you think that love isn’t found on the radio. Then tune right in, you may find the love you lost.”
 * “‘Cause now I’m sitting here with the man I sent away long ago. It sounded really loud, they said it really loud, on the radio.”

END

All credit goes to: Spotify, Genius