Determining title of a song, is darn near impossible

Like many people, I grew up listening to the songs of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

The fact I am a child of the 1980s seems irrelevant.

Each weekday morning during middle school and high school in Spokane, my family would wake up to the sounds of such classic performers as Kay Starr, Roger Whitaker and Perry Como.

I do listen to newer pop offerings, but this particular brand of music was a wonderful welcome to the beginning of each school day, but the real appeal came from listening to longtime AM radio host Barry Watkins.

As we grew up, we got to know Watkins a little bit, as his program offered many trivia contests and the opportunity to call in for the chance to win if you were the such-and-such caller. It's thanks to Barry and his crew I know what a purlicue is, which I just know is going to be the Final Jeopardy question the day I ever get on the program. My mother even helped Watkins around Spokane when he had to pretend to be blind during a disability awareness community day.

Watkins' recent move to Florida made us all feel a little like we lost a friend, albeit one I didn't get to hear so often lately, as the radio waves from his station don't quite make it all the way here to the area.

But one can pick them up on the way to Spokane from Moses Lake virtually right from the outskirts of town, so I would be comforted on my drive by the sounds of old friends like John Denver, Tom Jones and the New Christy Minstrels.

Seeing as how my car only has an AM radio — yet another of the quirky features which make it a vehicle full of character — playing the station would make for some interesting moments.

Like the time my brother and I were waiting for a red light to change to green, and a motorcycle pulled up alongside us, blaring heavy metal.

Smugly, I turned to my brother, and said, "We'll show him," cranking the dial. What emerged was a big band classic. For us, the moment was hilarious, but virtually impossible to replicate.

You see, the song had no lyrics. It was all big band, and we had only our faulty memories and lack of musical ability to try and repeat it, in order to find out its identity:

"It goes something like ba ba bum da da, da da da da da DUM da dah …"

Such efforts would be met with stupefied looks ( I really can't sing) and shrugs, or else concerned attempts to stop me from strangling on whatever it is which has lodged itself in my throat.

Of course, it's one of those songs which, until it became important, we would hear regularly, but the instant we actually wanted to know what it was, it became the rarest song of all.

So when it played again on a recent weekend jaunt back home, I pulled out my cell phone, praying legislation against such a thing had not yet gone into effect, and very carefully called my brother, hoping against hope he would not answer.

He did not. So for the next several weeks, we have a very poor quality, very scratchy recording of the song to try and find it. But we're closer than we've ever been before, and the recording is testament to the fact the song actually exists (we were wondering) and we were getting it right.

Of course, they said the name of the song beforehand, but not after, and when you don't know the name you're listening for, you don't pay attention.

When and if we do eventually find the song — a call into the radio station netted disappointing results; they apparently don't keep those records and have no idea which song it was — I intend to track down the CD and play the heck out of it.