This article is a tribute to Kevin Blyton.

Years ago, before Spotify or Shazam were a thing, there was a song that I had heard and instantly loved but couldn’t find.  I consider myself to have a vast musical knowledge but in this instance I had nothing to go off except two words, I quit. I did all the traditional methods of trying to find the song, I went into record stores and tried to sing it to staff and asked radio stations, to no avail. Then one day I was at Macquarie Shopping Centre in Sydney and I heard the song playing over the loudspeakers. I can’t remember who I was with but I abandoned them to find Centre Management. About 10 minutes later the girl on the desk told me she couldn’t help me.

I can still remember how frustrated I felt at being so close, yet so far from the song. Because I was rushing for my answer I hadn’t listened for other key lyrics to aid my hunt either.

Then, in 2010 at Toombul Music in Brisbane, I bought myself some CD compilations with a gift voucher I’d gotten for Christmas. I was playing one of the CDs in the car when ON CAME THE SONG.

Do you now need to know what the song was too? Here is is.

Five years ago I was in BCF, not a normal hang out of mine, when they played this fantastic song. I’m less embarrassed than I should be to say that I told people nearby to shhhhhhhhh while I hunted for my phone to Shazam the heck out of it, only to discover I’d left it in the car! This situation was even worse because all I could remember was la-la-la-la-la-la x 3. In 2023 I was on a family trip to the Great Barrier Reef and had just got out of the water, on a boat, after swimming with turtles and rays. As I was waiting for my boys to return, on came that song. I asked the guy who was collecting our wetsuits and it turned out it was his Spotify playlist. That song is here too.

Finally, and most profoundly, my brother died in an accident in 2005. He was 26. Afterwards when I was going through bits and pieces on his computer I found a file that said For Jen. We had always shared music and I still feel that loss. It was a list of songs, three quarters I knew but the first on the list, Dust in the Wind by Kansas, I didn’t. I made a decision that I wouldn’t seek the song, I would let it find me.

When I was secretly pregnant with my first baby, my parents visited. For context, Jacob, my son, was born almost nine months to the day after my brother died. I didn’t want to tell my folks the news until I was past the 12 week mark as we’d been through a great deal and I was already terrified. I was living in Brisbane and listened to the sadly now defunct 4KQ every day on my way to and from work. I knew their music back to front and inside out. Yet, with my parents in the car with me holding that secret that I would share a couple of weeks later, on came an unfamiliar song. I remember saying to Mum, “Oooh I like this,” and turning the radio up. When it got to the chorus, ‘all we are is dust in the wind’ I genuinely got so freaked out that I turned the radio OFF. Mum asked why and I only told her the real answer a decade later.

It felt then, and now, like my brother sent me a message. I have never heard it like that again.

I wonder how many of you have songs you are still searching for? That you listen to the radio in the hope of hearing again somewhere and somehow.

In recent years not only has song search functions made finding the name of that cool track you just heard instantaneous but radio stations are providing the song names on your car consoles. You can also scroll back in time to find something played with stations like triple j, which is how I found this song many hours later when I heard it in the car one day. It is a favourite.

It’s easy now, and that thrill of the chase is all but gone. So much so that when I recently saw Lucinda Williams at the Sydney Opera House there was this amazing playlist pre-show, none of which I knew, and between my friend and I holding our phones aloft every song I was able to add ten new tracks to my liked Spotify list. All Australian acts too, by the way.

I came to wanting to be a music historian like Glenn A Baker via discovering Jukebox Saturday Night on 2WS. With the golden era of the late 80s and early 90s around me I was up every Saturday night writing down and recording all the 60s music and artists. I still have the books of my notes. I love that era particularly and so I was delighted when The Capital Radio Network launched the DAB+ station Forever Classic 60s (now 60s Music, there is a 70s Music too) in Canberra.

Both the 60s and 70s stations are playing songs that you do not hear on radio for a variety of reasons, some are a bit uncool, others too long or not quite the right ‘vibe’. One morning I heard The Immigrant song by Led Zeppelin. What a welcome wake up and pay attention banger! However theses stations don’t give you song details in the car or on the website, so the most amazing thing is happening that I think is worth sharing to other music radio aficionados.

I happened to chat to Ray Kington a week or so ago about the new breakfast team on 93.5 Eagle FM. He is the relatively new GM of the Capital Radio Network’s Goulburn stations including Eagle FM, with Goulburn also getting the 60s Music and 70s Music stations. I mentioned what a fan I was of them and he told me that people are walking into the station off the street to say the same thing and ask about songs they hear.

These stations are building an audience via word of mouth and, for a great many, they will be hearing a bounty of songs and artists that they’ve NEVER heard before. It’s hard to Shazam while you’re driving and so, among our busy lives, people are actually popping into the stations to verbally give positive feedback. In GfK Survey 6 the Perth versions (6iX is a Capital Radio Network station too) doubled their audiences. Yes the numbers are small-ish so far, but they’ve only been operational for less than a year, the 70s version around 6 months, so people of all ages are finding it and, like me, enjoying something totally different. It’s great for radio, for local interaction and connection.

The thrill of the hunt is back on in a way that I wasn’t expecting, and music, as it always does, is bringing people together. I have a messenger group at the moment called the Music Detectives that has arisen out of these 60s and 70s music stations. If ever you’re on the hunt for a 60s, 70s or 80s track you can’t find the name of, I’m your girl.

Kevin Blyton, the Capital Radio Network owner who died this week, would have been delighted.

Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo. Email (especially with lost songs): [email protected]