*Poppy Sweet Pea’s song… /lights up… 1970, check. Always good to start a LoL post with alol…*

*Typical Legs, check… /drags… Chicory Tip, 1973…*

*Ah, lovely Joe Public’s song, check 1975… /billows smoke… Actually, Clicky, I think there’s something missing. What is it?*

*Fuck yeah! No one picked Kate Bush? That’s shocking… /smokes…*

Dear Reader, happy Monday…

*Yes you do, Clicky… /flicks ash… That 1979, leaving 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 to slip in. I wonder what Cade’s choices are…*

… And today we are presenting songs from the 1970s, the decade that put the ‘oil’ in turmoil. Please enjoy our ‘Gold Standard’… 😉

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Day 13: Songs from the ’70s

Cade’s first song pick…

Lots going on with music in the 1970’s. Was a weird time. Everything not yet commercialized in music was busy being commercialized, and there was no shortage of music to be had. All sorts of music from anywhere and everywhere. I wonder if the popularization of “the salad bar” has anything to do with the propagation of music. Well, maybe that in conjunction with the availability of devices to play music just about anywhere and everywhere. Oh, and the mass production of music made available via multiple mediums as well as the creation of large chains of music stores. It was quite amazing as a kid to walk into a record store and see row after row of albums on the shelves. Who are all these people? Where is all this music coming from?

I’m bouncing around in time a bit between the starry-eyed kid that I was then, and the hopefully somewhat more knowledgeable person I am now. And yeah, it was a mystical time to me back then. Not only was everything new, everything seemed…surreal. Dreamy. I dunno how else to qualify it. Everything around me was real, and it was happening, but everything was so odd and bizarre that it seemed to strain the imagination. Completely and totally unreal. Fuzzy.

^Time^

Roob’s first song pick…

I didn’t really like Marc Bolan of T. Rex when I was growing up in the 70s. I think it was because of the iron-on transfer of his face mum put on my tee shirt. My little sis got a Jimmy Osman ironed on to hers and I really wanted his brother Donny emblazoned across my chest. I got Marc Bolan instead; the shop had sold out of iron-on Donnies.

Childhood trauma caused by not getting what you want aside, I grew up and came to appreciate the late Marc Bolan, and T. Rex’s ‘Get It On’ is bang on for the ’70s.

*/puffs contentedly… That’s 1971, Clicky…*

Cade’s second song pick…

Ever stop and wonder what the point of music is? What its purpose is? I just did, and pretty sure it was the first time in my life that I’ve ever done so. Man…what a mind-bender. What, is the point, of music? I got nothin’. Maybe its just something we do.

/shrug

Music is a language, sure. A medium for transmitting information. A method of “getting through” or otherwise expressing a something or communicating in a certain way when all other means and modes fail us. But sometimes it doesn’t work well in any of those capacities. May as well be a fucking force-field. A wall. An electrified barbed-wire fence. A landmine, a bazooka, a sword or some other kind of weapon. A bottomless pit of full of nothing, leading absolutely nowhere.

^John Williams:”Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977)-Main Theme^

Yeah, I figure that if you’re gonna address 1970’s music, and you actually lived through that period? You gotta address “movie music”. And if you’re gonna address “movie music” of the 1970’s, that means John Williams.

^John Williams: Theme from Jaws (Boston Pops)^

John Williams was by no means the only composer of the period, and there are actually a lot of great composers from the period. But again, if you lived in this period of time, I’ve given you three pieces of music that are likely to resonate in your head to this very day. Oh wait, I’ve only given you two so far. Lemme see if YouTube and Lucasfilm LTD. and/or The Walt Disney Corporation will allow me to provide you with the third.

^John Williams – Star Wars Main Theme स्टार वॉर्स スター・ウォーズシリーズ Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa^

*Woo Hoo! 1977…/hand fin slap… Don’t get cocky, kid…*

Roob’s second song pick…

In 1972, Apollo 17 was the last manned Moon flight. Ironically, as the Apollo Space Program was winding down, songs about rockets and space travel could not be hotter, with Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’…

^Elton John – Rocket Man (1972)^

…and the re-release of ‘Space Oddity’, propelling David Bowie to his first No. 1…

*And that’s 72… /final drag…*

Cade’s third song pick…

As per usual, I’m gonna go over quota, but this was truly a strange time for music. Pop was mainstream. Disco was mainstream. Soul was mainstream. R&B was mainstream. Funk was mainstream. Rap was mainstream. Country was mainstream. Classical was mainstream. Folk was mainstream. Broadway musicals music was mainstream. Easy-Listening was mainstream. Progressive was mainstream. New Wave was mainstream. Punk was mainstream. Rock was mainstream. Soft Rock was mainstream. Pop Hard Rock was mainstream. Hard Rock was mainstream. Heavy Metal was mainstream. Hell, even Christian Contemporary music…was mainstream. Anything and everything was mainstream. Anything and everything was…Pop Music.

^M – Pop Muzik (Official Video)^

Roob’s third pick…

As it appears Cade has gone all in on his last turn, here’s what I’m holding for my final lay down… a pair of queens. One Killer…

^Queen – Killer Queen (Top Of The Pops, 1974)^

… One Dancing…

*/stubs butt… That’s 74 and 76 finished… /pats snout… Thanks, Clicky…*

The final word to Cade…

Yeah, weird times the ’70s. Strange days. The 1970’s were confused. Violent. Lots of shifts. Many adjustments being made, lots of people going hither and yon, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe all of this music being spewed everywhere and from all directions, maybe helped to keep a lid on some of the bubbling cauldrons. Music and it’s tendrils weaving in and out of the fabric of societies here and there, somehow kept the whole goddamn house from burning down.

That period produced quite the body-count for sure, and to get to the point, this song is I guess forever etched in my memory as the quintessential 1970’s song for me personally. My uncle requested it be played at his funeral. That’s what I was told at the time anyway. I just remember some lady gasping and saying “OH NO!” during the funeral service when it was announced that they were gonna play this song at my uncle’s request. Was dead quiet in that packed chapel. The doors to the chapel were open because so many people had showed up for the service that the chapel couldn’t accommodate them all. Yet even with all those people, and with the every door in the place swung wide open, you coulda heard a pin drop in that place. In the midst of it all, my 10 year old ears hear…

"OH NO!" 

…after someone announces they’re gonna play this song. What did she mean I wonder? That was only 42 years ago. You’d think I’d have figured out what she meant by now.

^이글스 (Eagles) – Desperado^

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We hope you have enjoyed the last two day’s retro of ’70s songs, Dear Reader. Tomorrow’s challenge will be songs ‘you would love to be played at your wedding’, so until then, have a Song… ❤

^Blondie – One Way Or Another (Parallel Lines)^