(Oh Yeah) On The Radio

Album: Flesh + Blood (1980)
Charted: 5
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Songfacts®:

  • "Oh Yeah," sometimes referred to as "Oh Yeah (On the Radio)," is a wistful midtempo ballad about being transported back to a past relationship through the power of song. "This is a song about a song, and in particular the concept of 'they're playing our song' – in this case on the radio, and in our car," Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry explained to The Mail on Sunday on June 28, 2009. "I was trying to create a picture of Americana, and long hot summer evenings at the drive-in movies."
  • The Brit-pop band Suede subtly references this song in 1994's "The Wild Ones," opening with the lines:

    There's a song playing on the radio
    Sky high in the airwaves on the morning show


    In 1998, Suede guitarist Bernard Butler teamed up with Roxy Music saxophonist Andy Mackay and Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood to form the British supergroup The Venus in Furs, which recorded a number of Roxy Music covers for the Todd Haynes-directed musical-drama film Velvet Goldmine.
  • "Oh Yeah" concludes the 2013 episode "The Wedding" of the Stephen Merchant-starring romantic-comedy series Hello Ladies. The song also appears in the 2018 episode "Night Moves" of the comedy-drama series Divorce, featuring Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church as a middle-aged couple going through a divorce.
  • Northern Irish band The Divine Comedy released a cover of "Oh Yeah" as the B-side to "Perfect Lovesong" in 2001. The Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon went on to select Flesh + Blood as one of his favorite albums in an interview with The Quietus on July 4, 2013, noting: "I love the kind of perfection of the music: every note is thought out, it's not a splurge, it's just 'now the saxophone will do this' and the drums are terribly, ever so just how they ought to be. It's wonderful music, really beautifully produced."
  • "Oh Yeah" was the second single released from Roxy Music's seventh album, Flesh + Blood, after "Over You." The song peaked at #5 in the UK, making it the band's fourth consecutive single to chart in the Top 10. The B-side, "South Downs," is a synthesizer instrumental composed by Ferry. In 1995, "South Downs" was reissued on the Roxy Music box set The Thrill of It All, although it was accidentally released backward. Due to the abstract nature of the instrumental, this went largely unnoticed.
  • Flesh + Blood charted at #1 in the UK on June 28, 1980, and was Roxy Music's second album to reach the top spot after 1973's Stranded. It also peaked at #35 in the US, making it the band's second-highest-charting album in the States after 1979's Manifesto. "It's a very interesting collection of songs, I think," Ferry commented to BBC Radio 2 on January 17, 2011. "'Oh Yeah' was, I think, the radio hit, 'Same Old Scene' did quite well too. Quite a bit of ground covered in it, we had a second guitar player, Neil Hubbard was in it, as well as Alan Spenner (bass), Paul Carrack (strings) guested, so we had some really good English players playing with us as well as the core band, you know. And that must have colored the record a bit."

Comments: 1

  • Zabadak from London, EnglandThe single was issed as "Oh Yeah (On The Radio)" in the UK.
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