Hi, Bill Radke here. I'm enjoying the listener responses to our "You Say It's Your Birthday?" story. I have a friend who believes our lives are profoundly influenced by whatever pop song was number one on the Billboard chart on the day we were born. My song is Sonny & Cher's "I Got You, Babe." (Aug. 17, 1965) My connections to it are: the duo's breakup made me weep madly as a child; and my wife once portrayed Cher in a show, singing (of course) "I Got You, Babe." OK, not earth-shaking, but fun.

My co-host this week, Alex Cohen can do even better: "Alexandra" means "helper of mankind." She's known to her friends as someone to go to when they need something. Her song: Bill Withers' "Lean On Me."

Find your song at www.thisdayinmusic.com

Let us know if your song's connection to your life is eerie!

Dear Bill,

I don't know what song was #1 when I was born (www.thisdayinmusic.com only has years back to 1952-what's up with that? : ) ). Anyway, thought you might be interested in this eerie example of musical serendipity:

On a September afternoon in 1975, I was off getting the results of my first pregnancy test. My husband Ron was home painting the side of our old Vermont farmhouse before the weather turned. His cup of coffee spilled, so he went inside to brew more and turned on the radio. Just then my car came flying down the driveway ahead of a big cloud of dust. I jumped out and ran into the house.

Ron said he’d already learned about my news. He asked me to listen:

“People say I’m the lucky one, life has just begun, think I’m gonna have a son. He will be like you and me, free as a dove, conceived in love…."

And although we’d heard that song many times and listened to it with reverence after our son Daniel was born, it was years before we found out its name was “Danny’s Song.”

P.S. When Dan was 24 he took a Semester-at-Sea voyage to nine third world countries around the world. This was the first time he left home for an extended period, and we’d gone to the Bahamas to see him off. As we drove him to board the ship, we tried tuning in the radio, which hadn’t worked all week. A song suddenly burst through the static and gave us Elton John singing “I can see Daniel waving goodbye….”

Great story, Jan, thanks.
I love those radio moments. Are they coincidence? Do our brain waves sometimes crackle right along with the AM/FM frequency?

By the way, other listeners observed the same thing you did -- the Billboard charts just aren't big enough to accommodate the life experience of the Weekend America audience!

Best,
Bill

Here are the #1 songs in the U.S. & U.K. on the day I was born, October 27th, 1975:

Island Girl - Elton John (American)

I Only Have Eyes For You - Art Garfunkel (British)

Funny how the American #1 single is a British artist, and vice versa.

I THOUGHT I already knew this and lived by the code for many years, secretly--that it is significant, the number one song the day you were born means an awful lot.

"Surf City" by Jan and Dean was #1.
I was born on the first day of summer.
I have a special summer connection.

I just went to the website to confirm all of this and see I was wrong.

Jan and Dean hit it big with Surf City a month after I was born. It was "Sukiyaki" on the first day of summer 1963. A big downer of a song all morose and sad and not a summer beach party song by any means.

I turned 42 this year and decided to tell everyone I am now 50. I just took a look at the 1955 charts and see Prez Prado's "Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White" was #1 in June. Now that's more like it.

Bill & Jan,
There was something called "Your Hit Parade" from 1935-1955 (http://www.nfo.net/hits/index.html). That site won't let you look up the date, but you can check out what was popular in a specific year.

I looked at the song for my 18th birthday, Johnnie Horton's "Battle of New Orleans," as thisdayinmusic.com suggested, and fell out laughing.

When i was in high school, my mother, a history teacher, brought home Jimmy Driftwood's album with that song. I played it every morning, on automatic replay, until the record "became broken." But by then, Horton's version was climbing the charts. So i replaced it.

My Louisiana-born mother never forgave me for it. (Nah, she couldn't be the one who broke the original....) When my older son started middle school, she put Horton's version on tape and told him to be sure to play it every morning.

It may have influenced my younger son to go into the Army, but i can't think of any other way it's touched my life.

Hi Gideon;
I love the idea of a cd club. I am always looking for new music and I really like to share my finds. If I didn't make the 11 cut for your club maybe you could connect #12,13,14 ect to eachother so we could start our own club. Also to Bill Radke, I thoroughly enjoyed the birthday song bit, mine was I Want To Hold Your Hand.

Thanks for the stories, everyone.

I'm not sure what the cosmic significance is of a British song on the American charts and vice versa. Joshua, perhaps you're able to see both sides of things?

Colin, you're so lucky to have your identity shattered by learning that your life is not a surf party, but a Japanese grilled meat dish. It's a chance to start all over.

Pat, given the events of this week, I hope Johnny Horton's song hasn't turned out to affect your life at all.

And Gideon, I think I know what you're trying to ask, and the answer is yes, I Want To Hold Your Hand, too.

Best,
Bill Radke

I really wanted my song to be "Crimson and Clover," or maybe Left Banke's "Walk Away Rene," but instead I got a Beegees song, and not a good one at that. I got "Tragedy," and there would be irony in that (it's pure Greek tragedy that Tragedy was popular on my birthdate), except it isn't funny enough to be tragic.

Here's something, though: Elvis died on my parents' second anniversary. August 16th, aside from being Jelly Doughnut Day for commercial radio morning show hosts, is also the day my parents were married. Elvis died on the commode reading a book called, "The Scientific Search for Jesus Christ." One can only assume that his search was concluded shortly thereafter. Similarly ill-fated, the marriage of Gary and Brenda ended a few years later in a sticky, painful divorce. They are both still searching.

I like to think that knowning our birth song, or seeing the newspaper from the day we were born, or counting the rings on a felled tree and finding that year where we were new and the tree was already old, is a way of connecting ourselves to a world that we were part of but don't remember. I get the same feeling when my husband tells me I talked to him in my sleep and I can't remember the conversation. Linking ourselves with the outside world is a feeble way of tethering ourselves to something bigger, and even though I know I'm prone to overthink simple things, I still think it's true. Personally, I was a little disappointed when I found that the hit song of March 27, 1979 wasn't "Hey, Lookie, Everyone! Today is Happy Baby Girl Day!" Instead, I'm left trying not to give too much creedence into the Beegees' "Tragedy." I'm trying to remind myself that they were champions of chest hair and funky gold medallions, but not necessarily soothsayers.