1972 was a good year. I had no idea that the Jim Croce album was essentially a greatest hits collection. Here is a breakdown.
20. Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce
Like everyone else in the world I've always liked this song. There is a certain sadness and yet not sadness to this song that can fit for many moods.
19. You're So Vain by Carly Simon
Funny how this song has held up. My daughter loves this song and it still sounds as good today as it did in 1972.
18. Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed
I'm not sure this song would have made the list, buy my daughter has been playing "Can I Kick It" by Tribe Called Quest, which samples the opening, to death now for the past 4 months.
17. Rocket Man by Elton John
Another one of those Elton John songs, he seems to have at least one a year in the early 70's that you just can't get away from.
16. Hello It's Me by Todd Rundgren
I had forgotten about this song until I started doing this. Listening to it I remembered how much I like this song.
15. Pink Moon by Nick Drake
The essential Nick Drake song I would say, but maybe I said that on the last list for whatever Nick Drake song I had on there.
14. Operator by Jim Croce
I loved this song as a kid and I still love it today. Such a smart song and another one my daughter really likes.
13. Superstition by Stevie Wonder
A great song.
12. Saturday In the Park by Chicago
This is probably my favorite song by Chicago. I've always really liked this song. I remember one time walking through a park in Philadelphia with this playing on headphones and thinking how perfect this song was.
11. New York's Not My Home by Jim Croce
Like I said his album in 1972 was pretty much a greatest hits. I have come to really like this song.
10. Melissa by The Allman Brothers Band
A great song on a great album.
9. Pusherman by Curtis Mayfield
The sound of this song is so infectious. Just a brilliant song.
8. Let's Stay Together by Al Green
Al Green had this run in the early 70's where he just put out one or two good songs a year and these are classic songs.
7. I Won't Last a Day Without You by Carpenters
Doing this exercise has made me realize how much I like the Carpenters.
6. Baby I'm-a Want You by Bread
My wife hates Bread, but I have a certain attachment to this song in particular that just brings back a flood of memories.
5. Blue Sky by The Allman Brothers Band
This is my favorite Allman Brothers song. We took a road trip a while back and I put this song on. My wife put it on repeat for about 5 straight times.
4. Across 110th Street by Bobby Womack
I didn't know this song until that one Tarantino move but it is a great song.
3. Photographs and Memories by Jim Croce
By far his best song to me.
2. Back Stabber by The O'Jays
The O'Jays are really good and this song is just timeless.
1. Ventura Highway by America
A great song with headphones I find myself playing this song a lot. I love the sound of it more than anything else.
I've mentioned this before, but "Time In a Bottle" is one of the very, very few songs that my mother (born in 1928) and my youngest brother (born in 1957) could agree upon.
ReplyDeleteThe Carly Simon song that I've been revisiting a good bit of late is "That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be," which is one of the songs she did with a lyricist named Jacob Brackman who was a camp friend of hers. I heard the song for the first time when we were teen-agers and I picked up a Carly Simon greatest hits on cassette, but it really was not until the last six months that I was totally blown away by these heart-breaking lyrics:
ReplyDeleteMy father sits at night with no lights on
His cigarette glows in the dark
The living room is still
I walk by, no remark
I tiptoe past the master bedroom where
My mother reads her magazines
I hear her call sweet dreams
But I forgot how to dream
But you say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be
You want to marry me, we'll marry
My friends from college they're all married now
They have their houses and their lawns
They have their silent noons
Tearful nights, angry dawns
Their children hate them for the things they're not
They hate themselves for what they are
And yet they drink, they laugh
Close the wound, hide the scar
But you say it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be
You want to marry me, we'll marry
You say we can keep our love alive
Babe, all I know is what I see
The couples cling and claw
And drown in love's debris
You say we'll soar like two birds through the clouds
But soon you'll cage me on your shelf
I'll never learn to be just me first
By myself
Well O.K., it's time we moved in together
And raised a family of our own, you and me
Well, that's the way I've always heard it should be,
You want to marry me, we'll marry
We'll marry
For my money, "Operator" is one of the perfect songs.
ReplyDeleteThe Sesame Street "Superstition" makes me proud to be an American.
ReplyDeleteIt has to rank pretty high on top cultural moments of the 1970's.
Delete"Saturday in the Park" was one of the songs that WKU's jazz band frequently played in timeouts of women's basketball games in Diddle Arena on Sunday afternoons in the 1990s, and so that song always makes me happy, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that Homecoming record by America is the first album I ever actually owned. And I still own it.
ReplyDeleteVikki Carr's sendup for a 1975 Kodak commercial of "The Times of Your Life" (a song that Paul Anka hit with the following year) will also get you, bub.
ReplyDelete