1974 Part Two

Before I get into the top 20 songs of '74, I'm going to go back through the list of songs 100-41 and comment on the ones I find notable. And I'm going to do so in the style of receently retired talk show host Larry King's old USA Today column. Elipsis alert!


So we start at 100 with "Mighty Love" by the Spinners. Don't know it, but those guys are just fabulous, so it's probably great..."Beach Baby" by First Class at 94. That song sounded so big when I was little. Loved it...Stevie Wonder tells us "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" at 88. Sound advice...An Australian nun named Sister Janet Mead made this list at 85 with a rock version of "The Lord's Prayer." Why don't more nuns get into pop music? Or how about some of our female pop stars sign up for the convent? I don't know about you, but I think "Sister Gaga" has a ring to it...84 sees the Guess Who teaming with Wolfman Jack for their last significant hit, "Clap for the Wolfman." I'm gonna dig it 'til the day I die..."I Love" by Tom T. Hall at 83! Cool. I wonder if he imagined that his gentle country take on "My Favorite Things" would be turned into a bombastic beer commercial jingle in which the word "twins" is repeated salaciously...At 79 we find a single edit of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells." This was the part that was used as the theme for The Exorcist. The Tubular Bells album was the first big hit for Virgin Records, and thus we have it to thank/blame for Richard Branson...Eric Clapton's cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" is at 76, and was played as a NotCasey extra..."Moneymoneymoneymo-nay.....MONEY!" The O'Jays at 75...My homegirl Helen Reddy has two songs here, "Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress) at 71 and "You and Me Against the World" at 57...Hup Holland Hup! Golden Earring put a wave in the air with "Radar Love" at 64...BTO "Takin' Care of Business" at 63. Randy Bachman, 21 spots higher than his old band...The Righteous Brothers came back by name-dropping a lot of dead rockers in "Rock n' Roll Heaven" at 58...Joni Mitchell's "Help Me" at 53. Good for her, but I wish it was "Free Man in Paris"...Steely Dan tell Rikki not to lose that number at 51...The 1902 Scott Joplin rag "The Entertainer" is at 48, as performed by Marvin Hamlisch for the movie The Sting...47 is where we find Paper Lace's "The Night Chicago Died." They somehow managed to make a prohibition-era Windy City mob war in which "about a hundred cops" lost their lives sound like the greatest time ever. And this time, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods didn't swipe it from them...And there are my old buddies 3DN, with "The Show Must Go On," their only entry here at 42. It wouldn't go on much longer, though...

Now that that's out of the way, here's the Top 20:

20 - "Hooked on a Feeling," Blue Swede
This cover of a B.J. Thomas hit, featuring those legendary "ooga chaka"s, was the first song by a Swedish group to hit #1 in the U.S. Lower down on the list lurked the next Swedish charttoppers, ABBA, at 49 with "Waterloo." This was another NotCasey extra this week. The other one, I forgot to mention yesterday, was "Rock the Boat."

19 - "Sideshow," Blue Magic
Cool little R&B ballad imagining a circus attraction featuring extremely lonely people. This would apparently be "more exciting than a one-man band." Not so sure about that.

18 - "Sunshine on My Shoulders," John Denver
JD again, extolling the virtues of the star our planet revolves around, before we all lived in fear of UV rays and melanoma. A busker once sang this on the streets of Springfield during a heat wave, and someone punched him in the face.

17 - "Rock On," David Essex
This oddly hypnotic number was the only hit outside the UK for Mr. Essex. Despite its title and its mentions of James Dean and "Blue Suede Shoes" I wouldn't say it "rocks" But it's spare spookiness embeds itself in the brain, unlike the forgotten #1 hit cover Michael Damian did in 1989.

16 - "Spiders and Snakes," Jim Stafford
1974 was a big year for Stafford, a singer and comedian who was once the head writer for the legendary Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He hit the charts with the very thinly disguised pot anthem "Wildwood Weed," (#93 for the year) and the he's-not-saying-what-it-sounds-like he's-saying "My Girl Bill" (#90). But his biggest hit was this song about a guy who keeps getting into situations where he's with a girl who's, as the kids say "good to go," but gets his signals crossed and decides that what the lady wants if for him to gross her out with various icky animals. You would think that this would land Stafford the Uneasy Rider Award, and it was a very close race, but something a little higher up just edged him out.

15 - "Show and Tell," Al Wilson
This song that isn't about bringing your hamster to class was a #1 for soul singer Wilson, who would later record for Playboy Records, which, yes, was part of that Playboy company. I see Hef's engaged again. His business may be flagging, but apparently he isn't. *rimshot*

14 - "You Make Me Feel Brand New," The Stylistics
I don't remember if I liked the falsetto on the choruses to this soul classic when I was a kid, but I know I always paid attention when it came on the radio. They also made the list at #96 with "Rockin' Roll Baby."

13 -"Midnight at the Oasis," Maria Muldaur
This sutlry number about what goes on in the desert while the camels are sleeping was the biggest hit by far for New York folkie Muldaur. Very sexy, though I don't understand why she would say "cactus is our friend" if she's doing what I think she's doing. Then again, maybe she's into that.

12 - "Jungle Boogie," Kool and the Gang
For years, the only version of Kool and the Gang I knew were the bubblegum R&Bers behind "Celebration" and "Ladies' Night." But then Pulp Fiction introduced me to this swaggering slab of uncompromised funk, and it was a revelation. They also made the list at #59 with the even better "Hollywood Swinging."

11 - "Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)," Aretha Franklin
This lush ballad about persisted love, co-written by Stevie Wonder, was Lady Soul's last Top Ten of the seventies. She wouldn't get back there until ten years later, when she went riding on the Freeway of Love in her pink Cadillac.

10 - "One Hell of a Woman," Mac Davis
The curly-haired one sings of a woman who, judging from the first four lines, is a woman, a baby, a witch, and a lady. It's lite pop, with a guitar line that reminded me of "Day Tripper." Mac, you bore me. Except that "It's Hard to be Humble" song. That was you, right?

9 - "Bennie and the Jets," Elton John
The biggest music star of the first half of the decade had a ho-hum year for him. He's at #78 with "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," #72 with "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," and up here in the Top Ten with this funky tale of rock excess that hit #1 on the pop and R&B charts. I've heard organists at NBA games play that unmistakable piano line as the home team is bringing the ball up the floor.

8 - "The Streak," Ray Stevens
Ray Stevens had been making records for years, scoring hits with novelty songs like "Ahab the Arab" and "Guitarzan," as well as the heartfelt "Everything is Beautiful." But then, the act of running naked through public places and events became a fad, even happening during the Oscars, and Stevens capitalized on the trend with this #1, his best-known hit. The verses are spoken-word, taking the form of live on the scene news reports in which a reporter (Stevens) asks a local yokel (also Stevens) to describe what happened when a mystery man ran nude through a supermarket, a gas station, and a playoff basketball game. In all cases, the yokel's wife Ethel, despite his warnings not to look, got an eyeful. The choruses are sung, and during the last one, the yokel sees the streaker again, and this time he's accompanied in the altogether by none other than that shameless hussy Ethel herself. It had competition in "Spiders and Snakes" (and if I'd opened up the competition to the whole 100, "The Lord's Prayer" might have pulled the upset), but in the end, Ray wins the Uneasy Rider Award. It almost certainly wasn't the oddest song to hit the charts in all of 1974, but among the songs that were weird and huge, it gets the nod.

7 - "T.S.O.P.," M.F.S.B.
The title initials stand for "The Sound Of Philadelphia," and the band ones "Mothers Fathers Sisters Brothers." This, of course, was the theme from Soul Train. Don Cornelius was probably the first guy I ever saw on TV and immediately recognized as cool. The way that deep voice extolled the virtues of Afro Sheen...wow, that guy was The Man from the word go.

6 - "The Loco-Motion," Grand Funk Railroad
Casey informed us that this Little Eva cover was the second song to hit #1 in two different versions (the first was my old friend "Go Away Little Girl"). The boys do there usual big dumb rock thing with it, but the song is just so much fun that it actually works. Definitely better than the Kylie Minogue version.

5 - "Dancing Machine," The Jackson 5
The last big hit by the original Motown lineup. Speaking of Soul Train, it was on an episode of that show that Michael popularized the robot dance while performing this song. It wasn't the last time he'd create a sensation with a new dance step during a TV performance.

4 - "Come and Get Your Love," Redbone
This all-Native American group scored their biggest hit with this jaunty, catchy number. For me as a child, the lyrics were as unintelligible as those of "Louie Louie." But I loved it anyway. That guy's voice was mumbly in the best way.

3 - "Love's Theme," Love Unlimited Orchestra
"Lush" is the only word that comes close to describing this instrumental ballad, conducted by master loverman Barry White himself. You almost want to start slow dancing to this the instant you hear it, no matter where you are or what if any partners are available.

2 - "Seasons in the Sun," Terry Jacks
This version of a 1961 French hit was almost recorded by the Beach Boys, but it was ultimately Jacks, formerly one half of the duo The Poppy Family, who released it and had an unaccountably huge smash. I get that the idea that this guy saying his last goodbyes to his friend, his dad, and his daughter is supposed to be a touching tearjerker, but I just hear a whiny guy who I wish would just hurry up and die already. This was one of five songs by Canadians to hit Number One that year, and by far the worst.

And the biggest hit record of the year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Four was...

1 - "The Way We Were," Barbra Streisand
Barbra scored the biggest hit of the year with the title track from the film from the previous year in which she starred with Robert Redford. You all know it: "Memorieeeeeeeees light the corners of my miiiiiiiiiiiiiind." It's quite good for what it is, although on one of the shows I heard before I started this blog, I heard a Gladys Knight version of it that blew this one away. But still, it could be worse. Yesterday, I just happened to hear the end of the year end edition of the current, Ryan Seacrest-hosted version of AT40, and apparently the Number One song of 2010 was..."Tik Tok" by Ke$ha. Haven't heard it? I envy you.

So there it is. Happy New Year all. Back with more of whatever it is I do here in '11.