This weekend, both the Premiere Radio Network and Sirius XM decided they were going to run the same freakin' year in an American Top 40 countdown -- 1978. Premiere chose the correct countdown of February 4, 1978, while Sirius XM -- not known for making many great decisions since the November 2008 merger -- decided on airing the January 28, 1978 countdown on the '70s on 7 channel.
With the exception of eight songs -- the four that were about to fall off from the January 28 countdown and the four that were about to debut on the February 4 countdown -- the songs were relatively the same. I decided today to a blog on three songs that defined the time period.
That is, three songs that had nothing to do with either the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack or anything the Bee Gees wrote for themselves or little brother Andy or Yvonne Elliman or Samantha Sang, etc., etc. etc.
Peg--Steely Dan: On the January 28 countdown, it was No. 28. Then it moved up eight notches on the February 4 countdown. I remember my folks got very contemporary in the 1970s. I guess my father knew that pop music was becoming a big part of my life. I suggested -- and he bought -- the Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" album, along with Leo Sayer's "Endless Flight," Electric Light Orchestra's "Out Of The Blue" and he also bought Steely Dan's "Aja" album. And I listened intently to that album. It was very different from anything that was out there. At 11 years old, I wasn't aware of their earlier stuff like "Do It Again," "Reelin' In The Years" and "Rikki, Don't Lose That Number," but I found solace in the fact that Steely Dan wasn't a "rock band" by any means, but wasn't Ray Conniff, either. I remember the title track from the album being this simplistic, slowed song, and I remember listening to "Deacon Blues" and to this day 35 years later remembering that line, "They call Alabama the Crimson Tide. Call me Deacon Blues." But "Peg" was the standard bearer of the entire album, the quirky keyboard opening, the smallish guitar solo in the middle and Donald Fagen's nasally vocal. It was quintessential pop for its time ... very non-threatening, but sleek in its production approach.
I Go Crazy--Paul Davis: The little song that wouldn't go away. It would spend an unbelievable 25 weeks in the Top 40 (which today would translate to about 60 weeks in the Top 40), being No. 18 on January 28 and No. 16 on February 4, en route to peaking at No. 7 for four weeks and becoming the first record to spend 40 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100. That was a huge deal back then. Davis did just about everything on this record, play the piano and keyboards, sing the lead vocal, write the song and produce it, too. It's just one of those emotional songs that takes you back to where you were -- in this case, practically my whole sixth-grade year at Hooper Avenue Elementary School. Then again, something had to offset all those weeks I heard "You Light Up My Life" in that time period. "I Go Crazy" is one of those rare songs that you want to hear from the melancholy piano-drenched opening to the keyboards tinkling at the end as it fades out.
Short People--Randy Newman: Soon-to-be Rock 'n Roll Hall of Famer Randy Newman sure caused a firestorm when he recorded "Short People," backed by none other than good friends Glenn Frey and Don Henley of the Eagles. Like it was yesterday, I can remember the furor that this caused, how people wanted to ban this song on radio stations far and wide because Newman was mocking all the "little people." All I remembered was all those mean people saying such mean things as it got to No. 2 very, very quickly. It would only be years later when listening to the song enough (my dad also bought the album at the time the song came out called "Little Criminals") and realized this was just sarcasm and that Newman had nothing against smaller people, especially in the bridge of the song when you hear Frey and Henley singing "Short people are just the same as you and I," and then "All men are brothers until the day they die," for which Newman replies, "It's a wonderful world." Again, I was 11, I had no clue. But now I do. And those who to this day still don't get it probably never will. They're probably the ones that kept the song from hitting No. 1 as "Stayin' Alive" leaped from No. 3 to No. 1 on the February 4 countdown. "Short People" stayed at No. 2 for three frustrating weeks.
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