August 2017: I’m driving into downtown Montreal for the first time, not as a tourist, but as a resident and student at McGill University. As I cross the Jacques-Cartier bridge after a 10-hour car ride from rural Pennsylvania, I turn on the radio just in time to catch Chumbawamba’s 1997 hit single, “Tubthumping”: “I get knocked down / but I get up again!” It’s just the song I needed to quell my college anxieties and driving fatigue, defining the moment with a click of a button.
As a medium, radio is prone to serendipitous moments such as this one. Each second of a radio show is unique to time and place, making what you end up listening to all up to chance. There is a certain amount of risk that you won’t know (or even like) the song a station will play next, yet there is the possibility that the next track will be one of your favourite songs ever.