When I think too deeply about my Williamstown quotidian, I have this overwhelming need to throw up or go on a run. On these flees from normalcy, I often tune in to 91.9 WCFM Williamstown. Though I can typically rely on my headphones and 1 MPH runtime, I was caught in a particularly tough spot and found myself committed to a 5pm sub during my most recent flee attempt. I’d been on edge most of the day, or week, or two weeks, but didn’t know when that feeling of being on the cusp would come to a halt. And so, on a fine Tuesday afternoon I gave a jaded station ID to the airwaves and began playing “Misty” by Erroll Garner. There’s this crescendo in the live version that was really similar to my feelings of the day, and as the song hit its peak I couldn’t help myself. Here I was, late to submit two midterms, in an October heatwave sobbing the good sob in Prospect basement. I wasn’t sure what to make of myself––thanks to our glorious transmitter there’s just enough privacy where I didn’t feel a need to stop––so I sat in the station and I made it through the crescendo. It is strange to think of how listeners are receiving the music I play and it’s especially strange to think about while I’m sobbing to said music in the studio. Luckily we’re professionals, and the average listener wouldn’t be able to tell what happened off air because the first rule of radio is never say Cry.
Part of me knew what I was doing, playing this song when I did. Perhaps this is a love letter of sorts to the spectrum of feelings and happenings when that bright red On Air is dim. It’s sweet to think of the many things said and unsaid in the studio, and it’s starting to get bittersweet thinking of my last semester of radio inching in. Few more in-station sobs for the road.
– Beza Lulseged, Archives