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imagine me on the maginot line

I've finally turned the corner on that blasted cold. Today I feel normal but still coughing/stuffed up, as opposed to the past week when it was coughing, sneezing, bleary, achy, exhausted. I'm kind of proud of myself for getting through a radio show with only one coughing fit. It was a doozy though: coughing so hard I literally threw up. At least that didn't happen on air! (Although I did have to cut the mic in the middle of a talkset.) I felt really guilty about bringing a contagious disease into the station, so I brought a can of Lysol and sprayed everything down before I left. I must have seemed like an obsessive/compulsive freak, but to me that's just basic courtesy. I sure wouldn't want to talk into a mic that someone had just been coughing and sneezing all over.

I ended up playing patriotic music for the whole show even though it was two days after the 4th. As you can tell if you heard the show or read the playlist, patriotic music in the Divaville genre means (with a few exceptions) war music. It's all those great WWII songs. I wonder why no wars since then have inspired such music? There are a lot of songs about Vietnam, but of course they're all against the war. I think there are a couple of country songs about the current war. Popular musicians still do USO tours, but they don't write songs about it. Maybe it's because no war since WWII has impacted the entire country to nearly that degree.

I tried to avoid war songs that were specifically not about the US, like for example "The White Cliffs of Dover." Although I couldn't resist "Imagine Me on the Maginot Line," a music hall ditty by George Formby (I love how he manages to use "Maginot Line" as a euphemism for STDs). And I guess I should have also skipped "When The Lights Go On Again" because the US never had blackouts. But I like that song.

Besides "Maginot Line," my favorite song of the show was probably "Shhh, It's a Military Secret" by Glenn Miller and Marian Hutton. My least favorite was the sappy, talky "I Came Here to Talk for Joe" by Sammy Kaye. Although I normally like Sammy Kaye.

Anyway, despite the coughing fits I enjoyed the show. I should download the archive and save it to listen to next year on the 4th.

2 Comments

Does XDU have public archives now, or should I ask you to send me a copy of the show?

Anonymous said:

The US's East coast did have blackouts, as the illumination from cities could cast merchant shipping into relief for subs.

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