Telefunken and Van Morrison

Telefunken and Van Morrison

Growing up as a teenager in a small Indian town in the early 70s, the only medium for transmitted entertainment was the radio. TV had not yet reached my town in those days and cable television and the Internet were both a good twenty-five years away. Most of my classmates at college listened to local medium wave stations (there was no FM either those days) for national news and Bollywood music.

Our family put radio to a different use. An uncle who worked overseas had presented us with a big, tabletop Telefunken radio. “Made in Western Germany”, the inscription read. The radio was large and heavy, but it covered the entire shortwave, medium wave, and long wave spectra (spectrums) and was a marvel of precision German engineering. My father, bless his soul, went beyond listening to local stations. He arranged to have a wire strung between two coconut trees in our garden, and lo and behold, the shortwave bands came alive. And international radio became our staple diet.

We listened to the BBC and the Voice of America daily. Not just the news, but also a wide variety of music (popular and classical) and drama from the Beeb and country and western music, and jazz and “standards” (courtesy the legendary Willis Conover) from the Voice of America. Radio Australia was another favorite with their cricket commentaries. Also, Radio Nederland, Deutsche Welle, Radio Sweden, Radio Moscow, Radio Japan, and many others, including several clandestine stations.

Very soon I expanded my listening and stumbled upon a new hobby – DXing or shortwave listening. I discovered over two hundred stations from more than one hundred and sixty countries from all around the globe. In return for reception reports the stations sent me confirmatory QSL cards, pennants, and other souvenirs. For some of the stations, I was the first listener from India!

More than the hobby, radio played an important role in widening my horizons and instilling in me a cosmopolitan world-view. I am truly grateful to radio and will always be.

Sadly, on graduating from the university and starting my first job in a distant region of the country, the radio, on account of its size, could not be my traveling companion, and it soon conked out.

Imagine my surprise on finding, four decades later, while idly surfing the Net in Canada, a Telefunken Allegro radio for sale! The seller was in Barrie, around a hundred miles away. Neither the distance nor the icy cold could deter me. The model is not the exact same one I had forty years ago, and it needs some repair. But when I turned it on and heard a local station come in loud and clear with the unmistakable deep, rich Telefunken sound, my joy knew no bounds. The delight I experienced was indescribable.

Now, you might ask, where is Van Morrison in all this? And what does the singer from Northern Ireland have to do with Telefunken?

My Telefunken saga did not end there. Two days later I found a Telefunken turntable for sale and, although there was another interested buyer, I was fortunate to snag it. In our chats, the seller, Glynn, an Englishman living in Canada, on hearing of my passion for Telefunken, told me about the Van Morrison song ‘In the Days Before Rock ‘n’ Roll’. I had not heard this song before but in this day of the Internet, in under a minute, I was able to find it on YouTube and actually listen to it. Forty years ago, I would have had to send in a written request by airmail to Dave Lee Travis or John Peel and wait a few months to hear it – if I was lucky.

What a song! The outstanding lyrics and music are further enhanced by the references to Telefunken in the song, as also the mention of several stations that I listened to as a teenager.

I am down on my knees
At those wireless knobs
Telefunken, Telefunken
And I’m searching for
Luxembourg, Luxembourg,
Athlone, Budapest, AFN,
Hilversum, Helvetia
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll

In the days before rock ‘n’ roll
In the days before rock ‘n’ roll

The song is from the album Enlightenment (1990). Van Morrison and the Irish poet Paul Durcan collaborated on the lyrics.

How did I ever miss this song?

Listen and I think you will agree.