Upon reading the OP, first thing that popped into my head is “Fire”, though in my case it was KHJ. There were others that I can’t bring to mind at the moment.
Fishbone’s “? (Modern Industry)” is basically all call letters.
When I was living in L.A., back in the days of people recording on cassette off the radio, when KROQ would debut or give an early preview of a song, they’d add someone’s voice intoning the call letters in the middle of the song, I guess to deter someone from uploading it (not that there was much in the way of song downloads in 1998, but anyway).
“Do you remember the all night creature from Stereo 92?”
From one of my all-time favorite songs, Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You by Sugarloaf.
From the link.
“…disc jockey Ken Griffin imitating Wolfman Jack (who would later perform the song live with the group on their Midnight Special appearance) stating the call sign of a radio station (“Stereo 92” in the nationwide release); numerous tracks of this line were cut to match local markets.”
I originally tried posting the video with all the telephone parts, none of the tricks worked.
I remember the Pointer Sisters, “Fire”, singing: “you turn on KFI”
Not quite the same thing, but I think Billy Idol, “Hot in the City”, he’d yell out the name of a city at a break in the song. I think the default version was New York, but I’m pretty sure I heard at least one other version, probably “Los Angeles!”
Did the bands themselves record all of these different versions? Or was it the voice of some radio station employee overlaid? And if the latter, does it sound as clumsy as it’d seem it would?
On the flip side of this concept, there’s the Radio London Jingle from The Who Sell Out.
Sort of placed within the lyrics: Len Barry’s pop hit 1-2-3:
A-B-C (A-B-C)
Fallin’ in love with you was
Easy for me
WABC-770 was one of the two big rock n’ roll Top 40 AM stations in New York City in the 1960s, competing fiercely with WMCA 570. I remember once listening to WMCA when the Len Barry song came on. As soon as he sang “A-B-C” the WMCA DJs broke in to shout “BOOOOOOO!”.
*WMCA now runs Christian programming, while WABC is almost entirely News/Talk, with the exception of “Cousin Brucie’s Rock and Roll Party” on Saturday nights from 6-10. Cousin Brucie was part of the legendary '60s WABC disc jockey lineup that included Herb Oscar Anderson, Dan Ingram (my favorite) and Bobalou after midnight. Cousin Brucie is now 90 years old.
I get to bring up Ariel by Dean Friedman TWICE in a single month? Holy cow!
“Standing by the water fall in Paramus Park
She was working for the friends of BAI”