Y107 FM - Radio of the 1980s - Lock it in, and rip the knob off!

I grew up in Nashville from 1978 to 1990, and throughout the 1980s as a consequence. One might think the result would be that I would have become a major country music fan, steeped in the lore of Barbara Mandrell, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty and Johnny Cash. Well, I listened to my fair share of Alabama, but thanks to a now long-gone FM radio station that is still a legend in the Nashville area, I grew up listening to 1980s rock and pop.

That station was Y107 FM. By today's standards, the content appears tame. By 1980s standards, the DJs at Y107 were considered so controversial due to their off-color humor and local "stunts" around town, even Jerry Falwell publicly had it out for the jockeys at Y107, known as "The Morning Zoo." They were headed up by DJ Coyote McCloud, Rhett Walker and Diana as well as traffic guy Buck Nayked and later Cam Cornelius.

The station mascot, Tookie the Toucan, was a fixture in Nashville on thousands of bumper stickers (and those were usually on the bumpers of the thousands of overly-bondoed Camaros that traveled all of the Tennessee roadways.)

The station's famous aircheck slogan, "Lock it in...and rip the knob off!" is still a favorite of 1980s-era Nashville residents.

I used to listen to Y107 every morning my Dad took me to school. When my mom took us to school, it was the oldies station. On weekends on trips to Percy Priest Lake or Radnor Lake, Dad would have that station on and it would be playing Casey Kasem's Weekly Top 40. Good times.

I found a clip from Y107's vintage broadcast from November 1987 during their morning show. One of the songs they played that morning was Huey Lewis' "Back In Time." I haven't heard it on the radio ever since then, even during retro 80s weekends.