Friday Mailbag - 3/26/21

My Ten Favorite Songs of the Seventies

Welcome to the Friday Mailbag. It’s a big one this week. My ten favorite songs of the ‘70s. But before that, I’m going to try and sell you a shirt.

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AND NOW TO THE MAILBAG…

Loyal N.E.H. reader, Uncle Dom, says:

He (that’s me!) certainly knows his stuff! Tell him I’d like to see his perspective on songs of the ‘70s and ‘80s…

I appreciate the ecstatic response to my Ten Favorite Songs of the ‘60s entry. Given the numbers that story did, I’d be foolish not to run it back. And so, let’s talk about the SEVENTIES.

When I think about the ‘70s, I think about my parents graduating from high school. I think about disco. I think about punk. Vietnam, Richard Nixon, Jaws, the Bicentennial. Naturally, I wonder how I would’ve fit in. What kind of music would I have liked?

As I did with the ‘60s, I spent my week immersed in the music of the ‘70s. A few dominant trends captured my attention:

• Gloopy orchestral pop

• Riff-tastic hard rock and power pop

• Disco

• Cerebral studio music

• Funky but elegant R&B

• Punk, proto-punk, and the beginnings of “underground” rock

By the end of the ‘70s, jazz had pretty much absorbed rock, thereby creating fusion. Some of that stuff hits me; some of it doesn’t. And classical continued its retreat from pop culture.

Before we begin, here’s my list of notable mentions, listed alphabetically:

Al Green - “Let’s Stay Together” (Hi, 1971)
Andy Gibb - “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” (RSO, 1977)
Badfinger - “Baby Blue” (Apple, 1972)
Bee Gees - “More Than a Woman” (RSO, 1977)
Billy Joel - “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” (Columbia, 1977)
Bobby Womack - “Across 110th Street” (United Artists, 1973)
Boz Scaggs - “Lido Shuffle” (CBS, 1977)
Bruce Springsteen - “Thunder Road” (Columbia, 1975)
Burton Cummings - “Stand Tall” (Portrait, 1976)
Carole King - “Home Again” (Ode, 1971)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - “Our House” (Atlantic, 1970)
Derek and the Dominoes - “Layla” (Atco, 1970)
Dolly Parton - “Coat of Many Colors” (RCA Victor, 1971)
Eagles - “Take It Easy” (Asylum, 1972)
Electric Light Orchestra - “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” (Jet, 1978)
Elton John - “Rocket Man” (Uni, 1972)
Elvis Costello and the Attractions - “Oliver’s Army” (Radar, 1979)
Fleetwood Mac - “You Make Loving Fun” (Warner Bros., 1977)
Freddy Fender - “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” (ABC-Dot Records, 1975)
Gang of Four - “Damaged Goods” (Fast Product, 1978)
Gladys Knight & the Pips - “Midnight Train to Georgia” (Buddah, 1973)
Glen Campbell - “Rhinestone Cowboy” (Capitol, 1975)
Grateful Dead - “Brown-Eyed Women” (Warner Bros., 1972)
Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds - “Don’t Pull Your Love” (Dunhill, 1971)
Harry Nilsson - “Without You” (RCA, 1971)
Jim Croce - “Lover’s Cross” (ABC, 1973)
Jimmy Cliff - “The Harder They Come” (Island, 1972)
John Cale - “Andalucia” (Reprise, 1973)
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers - “Buzz Buzz Buzz” (Beserkley, 1979)
Judee Sill - “The Kiss” (Asylum, 1973)
Marvin Gaye - “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” (Tamla, 1971)
Meat Loaf - “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” (Epic, 1978)
The Melodians - “Rivers of Babylon” (Beverley’s Records, 1970)
Michael Jackson - “Rock With You” (Epic, 1979)
Minnie Riperton - “It’s So Nice (To See Old Friends)” (Epic, 1974)
Neil Young - “Harvest” (Reprise, 1972)
Nick Drake - “Place To Be” (Island, 1972)
Ramones - “Judy Is a Punk” (Sire, 1976)
Randy VanWarmer - “Just When I Needed You Most” (Bearsville, 1979)
Raspberries - “Go All the Way” (Capitol, 1972)
Rod Stewart - “Maggie May” (Mercury, 1971)
Steely Dan - “Black Cow” (ABC, 1977)
The Stylistics - “You Make Me Feel Brand New” (Avco, 1974)
Van Morrison - “Into the Mystic” (Warner Bros., 1970)
Weather Report - “A Remark You Made” (Columbia, 1977)
Yusuf/Cat Stephens - “Oh Very Young” (A&M, 1974)

ALRIGHT, LET’S GET IT GOING

10. Jimmy Buffett - “Come Monday” (Dunhill, 1974)

I’m pretty sure Gladys Knight, Meat Loaf, Marvin Gaye, etc. made better songs, but it would be severely off-brand for me to exclude Jimmy Buffett from my list. And so here’s “Come Monday,” a song I love very much. I’ve been listening to it since I was kid.

9. ABBA - “Dancing Queen” (Polar, 1976)

The Eurovision Song Contest launched the careers of France Gall, Céline Dion, and our number nine artist, ABBA. Plenty of “cool” rockers hate on ABBA, but they are wrong, and I feel sorry for them. ABBA walked so guys like Max Martin could run.

“Dancing Queen” is ABBA’s best track. I think that’s obvious. It’s a song about dancing, for dancing. If you’re at a wedding or discotheque or party up on lido deck, and you sit this one out, just know that you are a grump.

8. Bob Dylan - “Idiot Wind” (Columbia, 1975)

In the third chorus of “Idiot Wind,” Dylan sings of an idiot wind blowing “from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.” From coast to coast, in other words.

Dylan’s hero, Woody Guthrie, released a song called “Grand Coulee Dam” in 1941. It was commissioned by the Bonneville Power Administration. The song has since become a folk standard, though it was originally intended as propaganda for hydroelectric power.

In 1975, the United States was entangled in a global oil crisis. Gasoline prices spiked. A recession was on. Though Dylan was mostly singing about his ex-wife on “Idiot Wind,” by song’s end, he turns his lens on himself, corrupt politicians, and the country as a whole. Maybe he was thinking of renewable energy when he wrote it, too. Who knows. That’s part of Dylan’s mystique.

7. Stevie Wonder - “Knocks Me Off My Feet” (Tamla, 1976)

Songs in the Key of Life is Stevie Wonder’s best record, and “Knocks Me Off My Feet” is his best, most underrated song. Pat, are you nuts? “Knocks Me Off My Feet?” Haven’t you heard “Superstition?” What about “Living For the City,” you heard that one? Sure. “Knocks Me Off My Feet” is better. Here’s why.

For starters, in typical Stevie fashion, we get a wildly catchy melody over head-spinning chords. The track sounds amazing. Tons of gorgeous piano playing and drumming. Stevie’s lyrics are usually his weakness, but I adore the lyrics here.

I don’t want to bore you with it
But I love you, I love you, I love you

I don’t know how he came up with that line, but it rules. Stevie’s voice never sounded better, and his backing vocalists are incredible, too. Maybe I go to bat for “Knocks Me Off My Feet” because nobody else does. Whatever the case, it’s my seventh favorite track of the decade.

6. Bob Marley & the Wailers - “No Woman, No Cry” (Island, 1975)

I’m talking about the live version from 1975’s Live!, obviously. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the studio cut.

“No Woman, No Cry” is very different from most Wailers tracks. It hardly scans as reggae. It sounds more like “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” or “Whiter Shade of Pale” than “Pressure Drop.” That’s a strength. The organ, backing vocals, and tempo give this performance a solemn, spiritual quality that’s just undeniable.

Let the record show that Marley’s a criminally underrated lyricist. Evidence:

Good friends we had, good friend we lost
Along the way
In this great future, you can’t forget your past
So dry your tears, I say

Amazing!

Lastly, is there a stronger or more iconic greatest hits comp than Legend? I don’t think so.

5. Warren Zevon - “Accidentally Like a Martyr” (Asylum, 1978)

Five years ago, my list would’ve looked vastly different from the one you’re reading today. I was far more invested in artsy pop, proto-punk, and Krautrock then. I became a dad in 2015, though, and when you become a dad, you automatically become a fan of AOR (album-oriented rock), singer-songwriters, the “tasteful palette of the seventies,” and session musicians. In short, you become a fan of Warren Zevon.

If I’m being honest, Zevon only really has two classic albums, his self-titled debut and Excitable Boy. “Accidentally Like a Martyr” is his best song by a margin, and that’s considering “Werewolves of London,” “The French Inhaler,” and “Carmelita.”

We made mad love, shadow love
Random love and abandoned love
Accidentally, like a martyr
The hurt gets worse, and the heart gets harder

4. David Bowie - “Starman” (RCA, 1972)

2005: a pivotal year in my transformation into music obsessive. That’s the year David Bowie entered my brain. David has since left this earthly plane, but he remains in my head, looking resplendent in Yamamoto.

I’d always known Bowie’s hits, of course, but “Starman” was fully new to me when my friend, Jordan, put it on a mix CD freshman year. I listened to it on repeat after finals had ended. The dorm was empty except for a handful of stragglers. You know the vibe.

That summer, me and my friends took the train into the city to catch the Ziggy Stardust concert film at the Siskel Center. It was great, but I emerged from the theater feeling bewildered. Where was “Starman?” What kind of psycho has “Starman” in his repertoire and doesn’t play it? I still don’t get that. Great track, though.

3. Brian Eno - “St. Elmo’s Fire” (Island, 1975)

Picking just one Brian Eno song hurt me. I could’ve gone with “Backwater,” “On Some Faraway Beach,” or “1/1.” Nobody–except maybe Joni–had a more inspired decade.

During high school, I used to lurk a message board called Light Blue Extra. LBE was frequented by guys a few years older than me who had superior taste in music. They seemed impossibly cool, and I bought whatever they recommended. That’s how Another Green World came into my collection in 2005. I was 18, and I’d never heard anything like it.

I chose “St. Elmo’s Fire” because it kicks ass, and I’m a man who respects a good ass-kicking. Do you like nervous, primitive drum programming? What about Robert Fripp? You like Robert Fripp? Cool. So do I.

2. Joni Mitchell - “Little Green” (Reprise, 1971)

Joni wrote “Little Green” in 1966, but she didn’t officially release it until 1971.

Like many of my favorite songs of the ‘60s, “Little Green” has a catchy fingerpicked guitar part and confessional lyrics. Of course, the big difference between Joni and, say, Paul Simon, is that Joni is a woman. What she was doing was new, necessary. I wonder if people considered “Little Green” a soundtrack to Roe v. Wade or the Equal Rights Amendment. They must’ve, right?

On a more personal note, when we were living in Alaska, Joni’s lyrics about the northern lights and icicles and sorrow hit painfully close to home. This song will always take me back to 2017. I’m happy to have some distance from this song and that place, but that doesn’t diminish my appreciation for “Little Green.” If anything, I’m more grateful for it than ever.

1. Joy Division - “Disorder” (Factory, 1979)

Joy Division’s debut album, Unknown Pleasures, came out in the summer of 1979. The first track, “Disorder,” is the youngest song on my list, and in many respects, it’s also the freshest. The efficient guitar playing, drumming, and bass-ing anticipate the goth and industrial boom of the ‘80s, and I’d also argue, some of Prince’s most enduring hits (“When Doves Cry,” “Sign o’ the Times”).

Obviously, Joy Division’s main draw is vocalist Ian Curtis. His opening couplet on “Disorder” is an all-time stunner:

I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand
Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?

Plenty of people can’t hang with Curtis’s baritone singing voice, but I love it. He was a passionate and expressive singer in his own way. If, by the end of “Disorder,” you don’t find yourself profoundly moved, well then I guess this band isn’t for you. But if you’re like me, you know that Joy Division made a seismic impact on music. They wrote the best song of the ‘70s, and less than a year later, they were no more. RIP Ian Curtis.

Here’s a playlist with my top 10 and all the honorable mentions. What do you think? Did I miss something? Drop me a line below. Oh, and –

Got a question? Feel free to comment on this post or e-mail me at newexperimentalhours@gmail.com. Thanks!