The Song Did It

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 499, 14 January 1949, Page 20

The Song Did It

] LISTENED to C. Gordon Glover's Fly Away Herbert in the company of an elderly relative who chuckled all the way through and said at the finish that it was the only decent radio play he had ever heard. Further questioning elicited the fact that it was the only radio play he had ever heard-he always turned them off after the first few lines and went questing round the dial after his favourite radio. fare-old-time dance music and Songs of Yesteryear. In fact, although he does not approve of the practice of letting radio characters carry

an orchestra round with them — being of literal mind-it was only the reiteration of the theme song "O For the Wings of a Dove" (and outside pressure) that kept him faithful to one station long enough to get interested. I shouldn’t be surprised if from now on he becomes a regular playgoer, provided the play is introduced by a few bars of "Because," or Tosti’s "Good-bye." This I regard as significant, for it is a fact that our listening habits are regrettably hidebound. The classicists flinch at the bare mention of a Hit Parade, the lowbrows reject the possibility of elevation. Many of us who condemn the morning serial have possibly never listened to a single episode right through. The holidays have given us a listener exchange between homes which should function as well as the teacher exchange between countries. It is up to us to take full advantage of it.