Back at it with our Song Challenge! This time it’s A Song I Like From the 1970s, which is pretty broad, innit? There are a lot of directions I can go here because that’s the decade I was born, so a lot of this stuff is familiar to me on a pretty elemental level. I’ll try not to go overboard, but here are several 1970s-era songs that I like a great deal, starting with one that as a kid I didn’t realize that it’s about…what it’s about. I figured these folks were having an afternoon snack of a piece of candy or something. It wasn’t until I listened to the song anew as a twenty-something (I’m very sure I didn’t hear the song at all between the time I was 5 and the time I was 25) that I realized just what kind of delight these folks were discussing in terms of afternoon enjoyment.
Here’s a wonderful Jim Croce song that has to probably be explained to young listeners hearing it for the first time. Operator? “You can keep the dime”? What’s all that about?
Let’s see…well, we have to have the Bee Gees, and this is my all-time favorite Bee Gees song.
And then there’s John Denver! I think there was a time when I didn’t love John Denver. I think it was however much time elapsed between my birth and the first time I heard John Denver.
Ballads about 1970s events? We’ve got those, too:
And I’ll leave off with this bit of pep by ELO, “Mr. Blue Sky”.