Album: Advice from the Happy Hippoptamus
Year: 2005
Cloud Cult’s album Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus has been in my life since I was 13 or 14, and I stumbled across it while scrolling through my older brother’s iTunes library. A lot has happened since then, and God knows I’ve grown a lot, but the album has managed to stick with me. “Transistor Radio” was always one of my favorite tracks, and my understanding of and appreciation for the song has grown along with me.
At its most basic (but still meaningful) level, it’s a song about the connection the singer feels with his grandfather, who died 20 years prior. He starts the song off as a child — he hears his grandfather through his transistor radio, saying there’s something he wants to show him. His grandfather serves as a sort of guide, and the singer imagines that his grandfather is leading him through various stages of his life by the voice coming from the radio. As long as he’s got that voice, he feels as though he’s not lost and heading toward some kind of purpose in life. Then, one day, the radio gives out. He’s got nothing to go on, and he doesn’t care what happens next.
The next line goes, “Let me tell you about rage when a signal died that day,” and it’s one of the most emotional lines of the song. There’s a precarious feeling to this part of the song, a sense of being completely lost and untethered to the world. In the end, though, the singer recovers. Somehow, he always ends up where he’s meant to be. Even though he no longer hears the transistor radio, perhaps just because he’s older, he realizes that, “Where I’ve been, where I am, is the show.” All his grandfather wanted was for him to enjoy his life and not take anything for granted.
The music gives “Transistor Radio” a warm, gentle feeling that drew me to the song in the first place. In the background, there’s just an acoustic guitar and occasional interjections from the glockenspiel, and singer Craig Minowa’s voice has a childlike quality to it. Even when the lyrics become dark, the music’s tone doesn’t really change. The instrumentation gets a little heavier and the plucking gets a little fiercer, but things calm down again by the end. It’s been a hard time for the narrator, but he’s made it through and still hung on to the sense of calm and guidance that the transistor radio gave him. He’s grown, but there’s still a part of him that remembers what it was like when he was a child and had grandpa’s words of wisdom to help him along the way in life.
Even if you don’t listen to any of the words, “Transistor Radio” is a low-key song that’s wonderful to listen to on repeat six times when you’re stressed. But, if that’s not your thing, maybe once will do it. When you take the words into account, however it becomes even better. It’s a reminder that growing up doesn’t necessarily mean shedding everything from your childhood, but rather, learning how to call on the best parts of yourself that may well have been there all along.
