Songfacts®:

• Nelly Furtado was 17 when she moved from Victoria, British Columbia, to Toronto, where made a name on the trip-hop scene with a band called Nelstar. When she signed a deal with DreamWorks and got to work on her debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, she worried that all those fans who cheered her on when she was in an underground band would turn on her when they heard it - her sound was now very pop, and being labelled a "sell-out" was a credibility killer at the time. She put these feelings into the song "On The Radio (Remember The Days)," calling out any haters and making it clear she's going to stay true to herself despite her success.
  
  The song is very aspirational, calling out a former fan who liked her until hearing her song on the radio and seeing her on TV. Furtado hadn't released any songs yet, so this was a preemptive strike for her own benefit. "I just knew that my identity was special and I should hang on to that," she explained to Q magazine.
• Furtado did indeed get on the radio and on TV. Her first two singles, "I'm Like A Bird" and "Turn Off The Light," were both hits. "On The Radio" was released as her third single; it didn't chart in America but did rise to #18 in the UK, where the song's trip-hop sound was well received.
• The video was directed by Hype Williams, who previously worked with hip-hop artists like Kanye West and Busta Rhymes. The clip opens with Furtado singing in her bedroom before she takes it to the streets with her old school radio. Canadian hip-hop group Swollen Members make a cameo appearance.
• "On The Radio" is Furtado's favorite song on the album. She wanted it to be her first single, but her record label insisted on "I'm Like A Bird," which ended up being the right call, as she later admitted.
• The official title of this song is "S--t on the Radio (Remember the Days)." The offending word was edited out for radio.
• The song got a lot of attention when Furtado performed it on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.