WTLX Mix Tapes: Side 1, Song 4

Note: This series originally appeared on Facebook in a slightly different form, Aug-Sept 16.

When I was a freshman, WTLX wasn’t very active. The following year, my classmate Kevin took over as station manager and definitely got things going. One area he had to address was the station’s music library. There was a lot of vinyl in it, but the vast majority was either out of date or too obscure (a few songs from what we inherited make an appearance in this series, however). Kevin used our music budget to aggressively add to the library his three years as manager. While most of the $ went to 45s, he judiciously added LPs as well, mostly greatest hits collections. This comes from one of those LPs.

“Cocaine” was the B-side of a two-sided single (with “Tulsa Time”); it peaked at #30 in August 80. The whole 7-plus minutes was regularly played on top-40 radio in Cincinnati back in the day.

During recording, the needle jumped the groove on this song four times. I played the tape so much in the late 80s that those skips are part of the song for me now.