When The Moon Sings - September 20, 2025

Over the years, When The Moon Sings has played 3500 separate songs. That’s not counting the occasional replays. That’s thirteen and a half continuous days of music. Nobody would want to listen to that, not even me. I spread those songs over nearly eight years of Saturday nights.

The media, and that includes computer based, is a highly emotional and noisy place, and radio is especially so. When I started show, I wanted to feature music and talk that could be enjoyed without disturbing anyone’s store of adrenaline. I wanted to do something that was quieter and hopefully more thoughtful. I wanted to prod people’s logic, not their emotions.

That’s not a good way to influence listeners. Stirring pots of emotions works far better. Excitement is magnetic. It fuels everything from the crowd at Rio de Janeiro for last night’s football game to the mobs who ignite communal violence. Thought requires effort and not that many people want to put that much work into listening to the radio. A few were thoughtful enough to communicate their reviews. I put them to sleep, I didn’t play enough metal, I talk too much, and so on. Okay. My expectations for fame and fortune through community radio never surfaced. A twist of the dial or a punch of a button took them elsewhere.

Those of you who hung around enabled me to continue doing the show. On one hand, the show wouldn’t exist if everyone hated it. On the other, I had enormous fun doing it. I talked with people I found interesting and or had accomplished something neat. Some listeners encouraged me, so the enthusiasm wasn’t always self-centered.

For most shows, I’ve included my thoughts for the week, my Soapbox, if you will. Like the music, the Soapbox was meant to be non-confrontational, lower in volume, stimulating interest and thought rather than emotion. Many of my day-to-day thoughts don’t fit that profile, and I left them unspoken on the broadcast. But if the radio music is emotional and noisy, discussion has become even more so.  Much broadcast commentary centers itself on anger and suspicion of bad faith.  Those things occur in my thinking as well, but not for broadcast.

The anger and yelling generally points itself at current events, things that matter or might matter to each of us.  The issues that cause the emotions generally would benefit from a more measured approach, but the emotions drown out more measured approaches.  Many listeners subject anyone who speaks on an issue to a litmus test:  has this person absorbed our articles of faith or is he a heathen?  As frustrating as that has been sometimes, I have chosen not to address those issues.  I will in person, at length and with some vehemence.  But not in the studio – my mission there has different objectives.

Even though I will cease broadcasting, I still believe there is a place on radio and everywhere else for measured and thoughtful music and conversation.  Perhaps someone else will understand the need and take up the project.  Over my years on the show, I have generated 364,000 words of musings, and sometimes what pops into my head looks an awful lot like what popped into my head a little while ago.  Maybe I’ve said everything I have to say.  Maybe it’s someone else’s turn.

Thanks for visiting.  I wish you the very best.