For a lonely teenager, WROQ 95.1 provided connection to larger world

“I’d sit alone and watch your light, my only friend, through teenage nights.

And everything I had to know, I heard it on my radio.”

Queen, 1984

Somewhere, in the distant past, an awkward kid on the cusp of adolescence sits alone in his bedroom on a worn-out, UNC Tar Heels beanbag chair.

The winter sun sinks behind the Blue Ridge in the west as the leaden, January sky darkens.

He doesn’t bother to switch on the reading lamp. Instead, he dog-ears a page of Richard Wright’s “Native Son” and slides the novel into his book bag.

The boy bumps the volume knob on the radio higher in tiny, measured increments, listening intently after each adjustment for a shout of protest from the living room.

Trailer walls, after all, are thin as cardboard, and the kid is pretty sure no one else in the house shares his enthusiasm for AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie.”

He’s sad and confused and worried about the future, and he’s hopelessly quagmired in the 30,000-year epoch between ages 12 and 15. “Lost … in a teenage … jail,” as the Eagles put it.

But thanks to The Q, he is connected to another world outside this purgatory.

He is not alone.

95.1 FM. WROQ. Charlotte. The Album Station.

The Q.

The radio dial on his modest stereo system hasn’t moved in a couple of years, and that little light Freddie Mercury sang about stays on 24/7/365.

The Q and its lineup of colorful DJs — most importantly, the immortal Rock and Roll Ted — provide a constant soundtrack to his life.

The kid drifts off to sleep to “Dark Side of the Moon,” and awakens to “Ziggy Stardust.”

His infuriating algebra homework is momentarily paused as he bangs his head to “Paranoid.”

He laughs along with parody ads (“Heiney Winery: The Wine that Made Rhodhiss, Rhodhiss.”) and a bizarre cast of comedic characters like Lynerd Skynerdski and Snort Tooski.

He knows the program schedule by heart:

Two-fer Tuesday, a double shot of your favorite artists all day.

The Album Slice, every night at 11, one entire side of an LP record. Deep cuts. Life-changers.

Side one of “Sticky Fingers.” Side two of “Physical Graffiti.” Side three of “The Wall.” Side two of “Axis — Bold as Love.”

It is, after all, the album station.

Saturday nights from midnight to 2, the station’s only syndicated program, The Dr. Demento Show. That Weird Al guy they play on there is funny.

Thanks to The Q, the boy doesn’t just learn the songs.

He gathers all kinds of interesting tid-bits, like how the Yardbirds at one time or another had three of the greatest rock guitar players, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page, in their lineup.

He remembers those morsels of trivia far longer than the algebra.

And the station doesn’t just saturate his ears with classic rock.

He’s hearing new artists all the time: The Fixx, U2, Thomas Dolby, Missing Persons, The Clash, Duran Duran, INXS, REM.

His horizons are being broadened, and he scarcely realizes it.

All he knows is that someone at the station is alive, someone cool and clever and impossibly hip, all the things he wishes he could be.

Someone who loves the same music he does; the music most of his classmates have never even heard.

Someone who speaks a secret language only the initiated can comprehend.

He is connected with something bigger than himself.

He has no way of knowing the death of his beloved Q is only a year or two away.

It will happen when the station manager decides that since Eddie Van Halen plays the guitar solo on “Beat It,” it’s OK to spin a Michael Jackson tune.

Two weeks later, The Q goes pop, and just like that, an era ends.

In the decades to come, radio itself would start to die as video would — as prophesied — kill the radio star.

But for now, though, the radio light is on, piercing the darkness with the reassuring warmth of music.

The album slice tonight is side one of “Signals.”

He’s rocking out to Rush and the lyrics are resonating deeply:

“The boy lies in the grass with one blade stuck between his teeth. A vague sensation quickens in his young and restless heart, and a bright and aimless vision has him longing to depart.”