‘Radar Riley’ a viral hit in Polk
Song written as tribute to small town police featuring Aragon PD’s own Sgt. Mark Riley as title character
“He likes doughnuts, coffee and a big milkshake.”
Those are words from the chorus of a new parody song making its way around Polk County from a local musician who wrote it with the idea of celebrating small town police officers for their efforts to ensure everyone’s safety.
“Radar Riley” was written by Robert Eaves to celebrate the jobs small town officers do on a daily basis to serve and protect, and that Sgt. Mark Riley with the Aragon Police Department was just a convenient name to borrow to help with the tune.
The country tune played and sung in the same style like that of Ray Stevens of old depicts Riley as the cop who will pull over people for going only a few miles over the speed limit in order to help the city overcome financial woes.
“I really don’t know much about him,” Eaves said in an interview last week once the song began to spread. “I met him only once a number of years ago when I was pulled over for a light out on my tag. I only got a warning from him at the time.”
Instead, he said the depiction of Riley within the song is only meant to be portrayed as a character and now what he thinks of the officer’s real life work on duty every day and hoped Riley understands he meant no offense. Which was the case, of course. Riley, a longtime law enforcement officer said instead of finding the song a mean jab at his profession heard it instead and said “I thought it was cute.”
“I’ve been doing this job for many years, so I don’t let stuff like this bother me,” Riley said.
He added that “I’m a legend” since he’s been forever enshrined in a song.
Also, the part about the speeding tickets in his view isn’t entirely correct anymore.
“I used to give out a lot of speeding tickets, but not anymore,” Riley said. “People have learned unless they’re not from around here that they have to slow down when they get to Aragon.”
This wasn’t Eaves’ first foray into music. He’s written songs on a variety of topics and genres, and a collection of his tunes can be found www.reverbnation. com/roberteaves.
It also isn’t the first time Aragon has been featured in a song either. “Aragon Mill,” written in the early 1970s, was a lament by folksinger Si Kahn on the loss of mill culture in the United States at the time.