Love Stinks (The J. Geils Band). 40 Songs for 40 Years, 1980

Growing up in Casper, Wyoming, there was only one FM rock radio station. I used to listen to it when I came home for lunch from the school down the street. One day, they had a quiz: “Can you name the movie that featured this song?”. I immediately recognized the opening piano riff from Hey Bulldog by the Beatles, which I knew came from Yellow Submarine (I’d just gotten the record for Christmas).

I begged my Mom to call the radio station. She looked up the number in the phone book, while I jumped up and down worrying that I was going to miss my chance. When we got through, I got to talk to the actual DJ, who told me that I had the right answer. I was caller number two—thankfully the first caller got it wrong. He asked me if I came up with the answer by myself (me: “of course!”) and how old I was. I can still hear his amused reply: “Seven??!! All right!”.

When I returned to school, I told everyone about the best lunch ever. And after school my mom drove me down to the station where I got to meet the radio station staff (both of them) and retrieve my prize: a radio-station copy of the just-released album Love Stinks by The J. Geils Band. I then drove my parents crazy by listening to this record nearly every day for months.