1

I'm trying to understand what does this sentence mean:

Hey, Johnny Holiday just laid on you another triple-golden sweep from golden-weekend time at KXLA, in Ames, lowa.

This sentence is said on the radio without any further context around it. I've tried to gather some information and found out that Johnny Holiday is a vocalist. Except for that this sentence doesn't make much sense to me (I'm not a native speaker) in any of its parts. I know this is a pretty broad question, could you please enlighten me on the possible meaning of it? Expecially the "laid on you a sweep" part.

Thanks in advance!

Improve this question
6
  • It's just radio hyperbole.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 20:09
  • @HotLicks that was what I figured out. Still I am appointed to translate this so I'd like to understand what it means. Thanks for any help.
    – Baffo rasta
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 20:16
  • My wild guess is that the fortunate (??) listener won some sort of prize (or perhaps a group of prizes) in a radio contest. "Sweep" suggests winning consecutive contests, and "super golden" is just apparently derived from the contest naming.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 20:19
  • A nation's team makes a golden sweep in the Olympics when its team wins all of the gold medals in a particular category.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 20:25
  • This may be helpful (for some reason there's something related to Olympics in the frame). What about the "laid on you" part? Thanks
    – Baffo rasta
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 20:27

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Given that it is a radio program, my understanding is that it refers to the "gold records" of certified music sales, which are an indication of a song's popularity. A "gold record" is generally issued in recognition of the song selling 1 million copies. (Reference: Wikipedia, Music Recording Certification.)

Then, a "triple-golden" is a song that has sold not just 1 million copies, but 3 million (it reached the "gold" level 3 times). A "triple-golden sweep" uses sweep roughly in sense 2e from m-w.com: "to win all the games or contests of"; in this usage it means "we played a series of songs that were all 'triple-golden'".

Finally, the "golden weekend" would refer to a change from their regular programming, such that they are playing only "golden record" songs for the entire weekend.

So what it boils down to is, they're playing only very popular songs all weekend, and their most recent set of songs (since the previous commercial break, probably) were among the top in overall popularity.

Improve this answer
2

Building on what @Hellion answered ...

Johnny Holliday (note the two l's) was a top-40 disc jockey, according to wikipedia.

I believe the quote is from the movie "Ice Castles," which is set in Iowa, again according to wikipedia. My interpretation, borrowing heavily from @Hellion, is that disc jockey Johnny Holliday played a series of award-winning songs on the radio station KXLA.

Holliday was a DJ about the time the movie came out, in 1978.

Improve this answer
1
  • You are correct on the movie this is from.
    – Baffo rasta
    Commented Mar 19, 2019 at 20:43

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .