Why my son is really unhappy with the radio

Driving home today with my son from visiting my sister's house, we found ourselves listening to Emerson College Radio's "The Playground". One song after another would come up that Sam really liked... especially "18 Wheels on a Big Rig" by the band Trout Fishing in America. Understandably he said "Go back... Lets hear that one again."

Now we are one of those households that boxed up all of our CDs months ago and converted over wholesale to iTunes. Judy, my mother-in-law and former school-teacher, who lives with us, got the fever and painstakingly ripped every one of our 673 CD collection. Sam's experience of listening to music that any song is instantly accessible, repeatable, pausable, etc.

I found myself trying hard to explain radio.

Me: "Well, there are some people sitting in a room somewhere a long way from here, and they are deciding what we are going to hear"

Sam: "OK... I want to hear that one again"

Me: "Well, I suppose we could call them, and ask them to play it again, but they don't usually like to play the same song twice"

Sam: "Well, its really important to me, so please make it play again"

Me: "I'd really like to Sam, but we don't have a computer in the car" [not true, technically]

Later, another particularly good song came along. Sam asked me suspiciously as it ended "Are we still listening to radio?" "Yes", I said. "I want it to play again", he said dejectedly.

It is interesting how a technology can come along and suddenly change completely our perception of a perfectly wonderful older technology that we have loved for years.