Moo-d Music: Classy cows go wild for Marty in the Morning
An irate farmer rung me the other evening to tell me that his cows had become "a right pack of snobs."
"Classical music," he roared down the line, "Is the cause of all my misfortune."
"And Marty Whelan," he then cried, "Should be taken off the air."
My caller's dramatic demand for action, was as a result of a sorrowful tale that I will relay to you now in full.
"Tell the world Denny," he pleaded. "I'm at the end of my tether."
And I promised I would, for a man's tether doesn't go on forever.
My caller's saga of woe and misfortune began the day he heeded the advice to play music to his cows, particularly when milking.
This 'music while you milk' malarkey, was very common back in the days when I first started out in farming.
It was believed that the music would help relax the cows and increase yields.
And in many cases, it did, for music can be good for us all.
Anyhow, didn't my misfortune tune into , and the cows dug the classy beat straight away?
His milking parlour soon became a cathedral of melody. It began to sound awfully posh indeed.
And sure enough, milk yield soared when Mozart played.
Beethoven brought down cell counts.
And Handel relaxed the udder of the lactating cow, to an amazing degree.
The farmer thought he had died and gone to heaven.
The years rolled by, the herd increased, profits soared, and ladies swooned.
The man became an outright success. His cows' love of music was even mentioned on the radio, I was informed.
The perfect story, you might say.
Well, yes, but then one day, the farmer made the fateful decision to change the channel.
Having grown tired of Stravinsky, he thought a bit of Kylie Minogue might make a pleasant change.
Well, the cows flipped!
They lashed out.
They stomped the ground when Oasis started playing, they kicked off the clusters for Madonna. And when Kylie herself was heard, the cows literally held back milk.
'Spinning Around' led to mastitis galore.
The famer's channel hoping literally lead to him getting a right good slap in the face complements of a dirty tail.
The cows didn't like pop and stayed bawling in the parlour until he changed the radio station back to 'Marty in the Morning'.
"They were roaring like old bulls," he moaned, "Until I switched back to Montserrat Caballé and the likes."
The cows had gone classical, and there was nothing the farmer could do about it.
He was forced to reset the dial permanently to , and being a headstrong individual, the farmer began to resent the cows. The cows were determining what he also listened to in the morning.
Subsequently he became deeply unhappy milking cows while Carreras bellowed in the background.
Marty Whelan's show in the morning became a particular ballbreaker.
"I can't stand Marty now," he said, "And for no particular reason - but the cows, they love him."
The farmer now milks the cows in the morning before Marty comes on, but struggles to finish during peak season, as Marty begins at 7am.
"Could he not come on a bit later in the day?" he cried down the line.
"I now have a pack of snobs for cows," the farmer sighed "and there is nothing I can do about it,"
I, of course, tried to dissuade his notions and highlight the fact that a love of classical music was not confined to the upper crust in society.
"Sure, even O'Riada had a classical edge to him," I pointed out, but it was to no avail.
The farmer signed off in the same manner he began.
Classical radio would have him in the madhouse by September, he claimed, but I had my suspicion that he was there already.
