November 11, 2004
what a good wife you would be
11/11/04
My friend Kelly - who is personally rebuilding lower Manhattan one meeting at time - just wrote to me and asked for my "top ten polyester song hits." Anyone who has spent any time in the car with me knows that I have a disturbingly annoying encyclopedic memory for every pop song written from 1970 to 1993 (and yes, I was barely born for the early ones).
This is largely due to having mono in 10th grade, when I was stuck at home for three weeks and did the following:
a) learned to juggle
b) memorized the entire "Top 40 Hits" book from Billboard Magazine.
Being a piano and violin dork, I became conscious of Top 40 music around 1980 with the release of "Xanadu" and Billy Joel's "Glass Houses," before retreating for years into the Beatles catalogue. But all of the weird little hits from the 1970s managed to sneak into my subconscious, where they now leap out to strangle unsuspecting victims on long road trips.
So I'll give you a rundown of my top 10 songs from that early era, when I was a kid strapped into my mom's Subaru, listening to AM radio as the windshield wipers pulsed through a thick Iowa sleet.
the Little River Band cruisin' to a venue near you!
Reminiscing - Little River Band
In 1978, John Lennon said that his favorite song ever was "Reminiscing," and this was coming from someone who wrote "Norwegian Wood." I think he was being a little hasty, but this lush favorite is a gorgeous exercise in excess jazz and heavy on the roto-toms. Must be listened to several times to be believed.
Moonlight Feels Right - Starbuck
No other time than 1976 could you have a marimba solo, or a band with eight members, for that matter. You think you don't know this song? Yes you do, the minute it gets to the chorus. And the lyrics? Stunningly greasy, as a man takes his date to the Chesapeake Bay and threatens to shove his tongue down her waiting throat.
You Are the Woman - Firefall
There is truly no song so gay, so unrelentingly twee as this. As soon as the flute solo starts, you feel sperm dying in your nads.
Things We Do For Love - 10cc
Complicated, with at least 25 chord changes making any cover band lose their mind, it's still a walk through the rain and the snow when there's no place to go. This song, like "Bohemian Rhapsody," must have driven the production engineer to a life of quaaludes.
Brandy - Looking Glass
Lindsay always complains that we do this song any time the Williams family gets together, but I think he's just jealous. Again, when else but 1972 can you have a #1 hit about a bar wench in coastal Oregon? And if you don't sing along with the "you're a fine girl" part, you need to have your blood doped.
I'd Really Love to See You Tonight - England Dan & John Ford Coley
I include this song because it typifies the 1970s attitude towards casual sex; I mean, the lead character "ain't talking about moving in" - he just wants to fuck your brains out! The lyrics are right dreadful, but the sentiment is appreciated.
Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band
Speaking of fucking, I loved this song as a tot, but it was only a few years ago when I realized this was about porking your significant other during the daylight. Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night?
We Just Disagree - Dave Mason
I once met Mr. Mason at some party in California and told him he had the best lyrics of any song in the 1970s. Often when Tessa and I are arguing, the thought comes to mind: "There ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys. There's only you and me, and we just disagree." If the '70s left us with two philosophies, let it be harvest gold macramé plant hangers and that.
oh, and the members of Starbuck say HEY!
I love 1970s Top 40 more than most, but day-um, that is basically a list of the Songs I Hated The Most, Both Then and Now. Except for the 10cc song, which is awesome.
i was going to pop in just to check out the NPR thingy, but now you've mentioned starbuck's "moonlight", which i honestly considered my own secret treasure. kudos all around.
as runners up i'd humbly suggest "i'll be good to you" by the brothers johnson, if for no other reason than the sheer force of the bass line, and maybe "right back where we started from" by maxine nightingale or "keep it coming love" by kc and (yes) the s. band.
the latter two just make you feel good. i don't tend to be the most upbeat person, but songs like that won't take no for an answer. i think the seventies had better happy songs.
I've got to put in a bid for "Chevy Van" by Sammy Johns. I mean, not only is this a song about a van, it doesn't even try to dress it up in the title. Hey, everybody--let me sing about a van!
The tune itself is prototypical 70's groovy--kinda like "Sundown" meets "I Am I Said", but lighter. The lyrics, though, are what makes this song stand out. We start with the epic line "I gave a girl/a ride in my wagon" and move on to a tale of casual sex, road tripping, and a dude who tells his passengers to "get some sleep and dream of rock and roll." The chorus concludes simply "We made love in my Chevy Van/And that's all right with me."
It's all right with me, too, dude.
I hope i-tunes gives you a cut of the minimum $3 per reader that will be spent tonight.
Thanks for the "breather" heading in to the weekend.
As you might imagine, As a kid in the 70s I had a real fascination with Dave Mason. I was once in a guitar store 10 minutes after he was, but I have yet to meet him.
Dave Mason is Alive
Um..."you feel sperm dying in your nads".
And this is supposed to be a good thing?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/clipserve/B000040OJ6001006/0/102-6651748-2980139
amazon has audio clips
I can't tell you what a disappointment it is to me to find a crusading founding father of Coastopia taking such a benignant eye toward works of music that any sane 21st century listener with musical values can tell are crap for landfill, and preferably Yucca Mountain.
actually, that lennon recommendation isn't so bad after a couple listens.
Dude.
This has to be one of the whitest blog entries in history.
You remember that guy in gym class, or on tryout day for the basketball team? The one who, when he came out of the locker room wearing shorts, his legs were so pasty white, people actually gasped? Like he hadn't seen the sun in about 7 years?
That kind of white.
Where's the funk?
"Pick Up The Pieces," maybe? "Skin Tight?" "Strawberry Letter 23?"
There is no bass on the list! (I get a picture of a very white recording engineer wincing, then reaching out and turning the bass knob down to 0.1). I'm not saying this stuff isn't "quality songwriting," but this list is DEAD from the waist down!
That white baby boomers got laid listening to this stuff (and we all know they did) is further testimony (as if any were needed) that the 70s were completely wasted on them, just like youth is wasted on the young.
WE WANT THE FUNK!
Dammit.
Yeah, Bud, didn't Ian once own a Bootsy Collins album? I guess Ian's bass is buried somewhere deep in the red states, perhaps next to Bootsy's in Cincinnati.
Honey, those are so polyester they're double-knit. Excellent American cheese.
Well, except for the Dave Mason. I still like Dave Mason.
Hey, the list was for "top 10 polyester hits," not "top 10 greatest songs of the '70s." It's easy to make the latter list, but the former takes a good memory and an affection for cheese.
Which is why, Bud, there weren't any FUNK on the list. This is AM car radio, one speaker in the middle of the dash of your '75 Opel, no bass, a couple of cold french fries stuck in the vinyl seat.
Chip, someone stole my Bootsy album at Grimes Dorm.
...I can't help it, I have to bring up Pure Prairie League (how's THAT for pure 70s au naturel inspiration? You can practically smell the Herbal Essence) and their unforgettable, harmonies-flyin-everywhere hit, "Let Me Love You Tonight." Ah, another sonic monument to the one-night-stand! Except this time, he's healing her wounded heart, recently been stomped upon by her estranged lover: "Dark clouds are blowin in the wind/ He's crossin your mind again..."
Oh, I'm truly sorry for this one -- cuz it's going to get stuck in everyone's head until tomorrow -- but nothing says "70's Polyester" like The Pina Colada Song...
(and hell, if a guy named "Rupert" can have a hit song, you know it had to be because of the polyester)
yep, dammit, there is goes.
Well, I'll freely admit, at least, that in this discussion, they're ain't no good guys or bad guys, that truly, we just disagree.
But I do disagree.
George Clinton wore a lot of polyester, he just filled it out well.
I heard "September," "Got to be Real" and "Best of My Love" (Emotions, NOT the Eagles, ewwww) blasted from the same tinny speakers as your tepid "classics."
Funky Polyester (and Polyester Rock that Truly Rocked, too) inspired me, showed me that life was full of possibilities, made me feel passionate about living.
The songs on your list, though, while I freely admit they're quality songs, I mostly found enervating.
But hey, YOU rock. I'm never gonna let 'em say that I don't love you...
What about "Windy" by the Assocaition? Perhaps a bit earlier than the others, but it has a flute solo as well as a damn righteous bassline.
or 'Wildfire' by Michael Murphey.
But the king of polyester songs not already mentioned begins and ends with Dan Hill's 'Sometimes When We Touch' the sleaze/cheese nadir of the 70's.
Kudos on your selections. Though I'd substitute "Just Remember I Love You" as the Firefall entry, "You Are the Woman" may be truer to the intended spirit of the list. Plus the flute solo helped pave way for the dude from Men at Work.
May I suggest "Smoke From a Distant Fire" by The Sanford Townsend Band as a bonus track?
rp
It was western NC's few-and-far-between non-religious and for-shit-scratchy AM stations or 8 Track tapes in a hatchback Plymouth Arrow or mom's Datsun (both neon urine yellow). The pre-Xanadu "Please Mr. Please, etal" and Leo Sayer's "You Make me Feel like Dancing" stick in my sub-conscious craw.
Seriously though, I think I speak for the lot when I say (and I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable), I, uh, we honestly love you.
By the by, is this 70s AM format gonna be the preferred muzak setting in most of Coastopia? If so, I'm gonna have to lobby for some occasional blocks of We-Voted-BlueGrass.
I think the 70's black and white bands getting cited here share some sartoro-aesthetic commonalities, but I still feel that the white bands Ian cited do form a sort of natural category that resists integration with George Clinton. I just don't think you had too many LittleRiverBand/Parliament/RickJames cross listeners. Now Earth Wind & Fire I would like to propose, comes closer to this polyester or whatever category and I suggest may have spent a few summers there. Remember those harmonies in "September" and "Got to Get You into my Life (into my life)"? Funky, black and white all at the same time. But I suspect we ought to poll cross-racially/cross-culturally. I may be unfairly exempting George Clinton from this cheesy/dorky category because I found him exotic, whereas somehow I didn't have to be black or think black to know that Maurice White in his faux Egyptian blouse was no cooler than me.
we may have left out the grandaddy of them all...
Dream Weaver
Ian - If there's one person who woulda swiped your Bootsy album in Grimes, I'm thinkin' it musta been Marsh-Ra. Or maybe those guys who lived across from us who wanted to kill you because you called them "The Clampetts."
Ian - If there's one person who woulda swiped your Bootsy album in Grimes, I'm thinkin' it musta been Marsh-Ra. Or maybe those guys who lived across from us who wanted to kill you because you called them "The Clampetts."
NO WAY! Did you guys click on some of those song links! "You are the Woman" and "Afternoon Delight" are HOME COMPUTER KARAOKE!! My husband and I just enjoyed a rousing home rendition of the (hoplessly "twee") You Are The Woman... Too.Much.Fun.
Tanya, "The Pina Colada Song" was 1980! It was the product of another cheesy decade. Though admittedly, it was Seventiesish.
Actually the first 2 years of the 80s were terrible, at least in Top 40 terms. Suddenly everyone was targeting aging baby boomers, so you got crap like Rupert Holmes. There was lots of great music being made, but pop radio wouldn't touch most of it. (How did Devo ever manage a hit record then?!)
Speaking of Rupert Holmes -- THIS was his masterpiece. And it was a 70s song.
Aw crap, it ate my link. Try this: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=2005
Speaking of Rupert Holmes---how many threads of apocrypha lead back to him---in fact, does anyone remember the song "Him"?? ("Him, him, HIM, what's she gonna do abooouuut himmmmmmm...she's gonna have to do without himmmmmmm....or do without me, me, ME, no one gets to get it for freeeeeeeeee, it's me or it's himmm...")
The nails on chalkboard 70's hit of all time is Sunny by Bobby Goldsboro..and the flip side, Watching Scotty Grow. It makes me wanna shout HELP me Rhonda!
moonlight feels right is the best. i would have to put dancin' in the moonlight by king harvest and the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald by gordon lightfoot in my top five !
Can anyone help me? I want the lyrics to Bobby Goldsboro's song Danny, the flip side of Honey. Thanks! Athea
WOW! What a pompas ass, ego maniac you are. So you memorized the entire billboard top 40 huh? Save your self congratulations for still being able to jerk off to 70's sitcoms. You don't know squat about music other than knowing some riffs and covering other real artists music. I'll try not to think about what YOU sound like. Well, here's two you don't remember...one is not about the lyrics...just the sound - Let's Live Together - Road Apples...and the other is ALL about good lyrics...Love Me, Love Me, Love - Frank Mills. Not so smart after all, huh?