I think "Julie" means that she won't stop looking out for him until he's happy again (i.e., "sunlight has touched your face"), and not leave him in the literal sense. But then again, I've been known to be wrong before.
jasonhare
· 5 months ago
I'm sure you're right. But I like my interpretation better. :)
DwDunphy
· 5 months ago
Ah, doormat country. Is there anything more acquiescent?
10over9
· 5 months ago
Just change your name to Lisa and everyone's happy. Sooo simple.
Jack
· 5 months ago
Is your favorite breakfast the Denver omelet?
jasonhare
· 5 months ago
An omelet with my dog in it? You're sick, sir.
DwDunphy
· 5 months ago
And what's your opinion of the Denver Nuggets? Or was he fixed?
Pete
· 5 months ago
6 songs topped both the country and pop charts that year? Damn. I knew there was a lot of crossover in the 70s and early 80s but that's a lot. What were the other four if I may ask?
MatthewBolin
· 5 months ago
"(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" by B.J. Thomas "Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glen Campbell "I'm Sorry"/"Calypso," (double A-side single) by John Denver "Convoy" by C.W. McCall.
Actually "Convoy" hit #1 for the week of Jan 10, 1976, but it was released in 1975 (along with the other five songs), and hit #1 on the Country charts beginning in December 1975.
Pete
· 5 months ago
Thanks! I find it funny that even the country folks were in on the c.b. radio craze.
David_E
· 5 months ago
... Was this meant ironically? The country folks WERE the CB craze.
DwDunphy
· 5 months ago
Except for Joey Bob McVittles. He didn't need yer damn CB. He had the Third Eye Insight (and a lifetime supply of bathtub gin.)
eddie_w
· 5 months ago
A friend just played C.W. McCall's greatest hits album on a road trip we took over Memorial Day weekend. I had never heard anything but 'Convoy' before, but it was the perfect driving music. I got a lot of laughs both intentional ('Round the World with the Rubber Duck') and unintentional ('Roses for Mama'). At the very least, it helped me brush up on my CB lingo.
DwDunphy
· 5 months ago
I keep getting "Somebody Done.." and "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" mixed up in my head. I think it's because of the "Hey!"
mojo
· 5 months ago
ah said pig-pen this here's the rubber duck, and ah ain't a gonna pay no toll. so we crashed the gate, doin' 98 and said "Let them truckers roll, 10-4"
WOW I still remember it just like it was yesterday. One of the few songs that came on the radio that my dad (41 years old when I was born 41 years ago) and I both liked at the time. In fact that might have been the only hit to do that particular "crossover," ever.
Beau
· 5 months ago
9. I'll have what she's having.
4. "You don't know Grand Funk? The bare-chested heroics of Mark Farner? The competent drumming of Don Brewer?"
dslifton
· 5 months ago
"The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher?"
Beau
· 5 months ago
I knew I was forgetting someone.
Actually, #9 reminds me of all those awkward moments hearing "Hungry Like the Wolf" on the radio with my mom and wondering, "OK, which version are we going to hear? Do I need to change the station before the fade?"
DwDunphy
· 5 months ago
You think that's bad? Try explaining away "The Great Gig In The Sky"...
David_E
· 5 months ago
Okay – THAT made me laugh.
JonCummings
· 5 months ago
This Top 10 brings back a flood of memories, because the summer of '75 was the first time I really became cognizant of pop radio and knew practically all the songs on a Top 10 chart. I had just finished fourth grade, and my friends and I started collecting singles that summer. My first was "Philadelphia Freedom"; "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" was in the first five (shut up!), and "Bad Time" was one of my first favorite songs.
It's funny, considering most of Linda Ronstadt's early-rock covers sucked ass, but I still think "When Will I Be Loved" stomps all over the Everlys.
The funny thing about "Love Won't Let Me Wait" is that Orgasm Girl is probably thinking, "Well, dammit, you're making ME wait long enough!" That is a much more authentic O than the one in "Love To Love You Baby."
jabartlett
· 5 months ago
This post is all kinds of awesome, as usual. The only thing awesome-r is that picture of you and the dog. It's the kind of thing Frank and Estelle Costanza would have kept on the mantelpiece.
I always figured that the Lisa in "I'm Not Lisa" was a dead girl, and that Jessi/Julie was trying to coax Waylon/Whomever past his grief, and she wouldn't give up until he was over it. And as for "Love Won't Let Me Wait," I was 15 when this song came out. Imagine how your average hormonally addled teenager felt hearing it ever three hours.
DwDunphy
· 5 months ago
"Old Days" is the reason I just hate Chicago. I remember getting that album for Christmas (the one with the stitched cardinal patch on the front.) I must have been six years old at the time, and I obsessed over it. For a brief moment in history, Chicago was a kick-ass rock band!
Now Chicago is like that baseball player you used to look up to, the one that knocked 'em out of the park at every step up to the plate. Now they're picking fights at conventions because they're asking for $80 just to sign a replica pennant, and it's not even a good, sturdy felt pennant. It's a recycled-underwear-and-doo-rag pennant. Their evil hag of an ex-wife is taking them to the cleaners because the botox is wearing off, the implants have burst and somebody's gotta set that junk straight. And finally, after years of abusing steroids, their nuts are like those clacker toys where you flick your wrist to get the clacker balls to snap back and forth on collision, only, they don't collide, they just swing around back 'n forth, aimless, impotent and pathetic.
But yeah, "Old Days" was hot.
Eric S.
· 5 months ago
I like the analogy. I have similar feelings because I really got into Chicago around the time of "Old Days", and now I think it was the last really great song they ever did. I listened to the 80's-era Foster stuff, but for the most part they sounded like every other pop band of the era. To me "Old Days" signals the end of that great original Chicago sound.
Geoff
· 5 months ago
Never really pondered it before -- and I was/am a big fan of pre-Terry Kath death Chicago -- but, yes, I agree that "Old Days" was Chicago's last truly great pop/rock song. I do like "If You Leave Me Now" of Mellow Gold fame, and in weaker moments will confess to being partial to "Hard To Say I'm Sorry", but those are Cetera ballads rather than classic Chicago songs.
"Chicago XI", the last LP they did before Terry Kath's death and source of the inferior hit "Baby, What A Big Surprise", has a couple of nice cuts that were not released as singles and did not get big FM airplay either. So "Old Days" was it. Great song.
Geoff
· 5 months ago
Correction: It turns out that several post-"Old Days" Chicago songs which I like a lot *were* released as singles: "You Are On My Mind", "Little One" and "Take Me Back to Chicago". They just were not major hits. Thus "Old Days" to me remains the period at the end of the classic Chicago era. Moreover, while all the other songs on this chart are definitively 1975, the song stands out as pop gem that transcends the era.
I would not even have posted this correction except I notice a couple of pop chart connoisseurs lurking on this forum ... men/women after my own heart!
Elaine
· 5 months ago
Every time I'm reminded of a pop/country crossover hit from the 70's I remember how overboard the powers that be went, trying to convince us that Shania Twain was the first in the 90's.
I love all of these songs! Your parents inexplicably dug John Denver? Mine dug Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. And later, the Little River Band, but we don't talk about it anymore. That purple greatest hits album of hers was a staple of my childhood. To this day if I need to be snapped out of a foul mood, her version of "You're No Good" does the trick. Either that or Level 42's first album.
David_E
· 5 months ago
Ah, for the days of Ronnie Milsap, Eddie Rabbitt and Teri Gibbs ...
ian
· 5 months ago
Ah, GFR, despised by the British Music Press in the early 70s - well remember the NME picture of the band onstage with word bubble saying something like ' It's E to D then back to E and if that doesn;t work, turn up the volume' Don't care - part of my back pages and 'Paranoid' and 'Inside Looking Out' are up there with the best of LZ and Iron Butterfly for this Homer Simpson! Check out the Live in Atlanta album from 1970 - porr musicianship + volume = rock and roll at its very best.
Old_Davy
· 5 months ago
This was a great time in pop music with a top 10 Chart where 60% are terrific songs. (Linda Ronstadt, Grand Funk, Elton John, Chicago, Ace, and (gulp) America). I must agree with your assessment of the John Denver song. Man, is that one terrible track or what, but he sure sings the hell out of it. But if I never hear Freddy Fender again in my life, it will be okay with me.
forwardgirl
· 5 months ago
"I'll have what she's having."
forwardgirl
· 5 months ago
Damn Beau, didn't mean to step on your line. This is great Mellow Chart Gold Attack, I love this era with the country/pop crossover vibe. And Linda Ronstadt is just pop perfection to me. We must be of an age, Jason, I can't think of John Denver without thinking of the Muppets...
jasonhare
· 5 months ago
"A Christmas Together" by John Denver and the Muppets is my favorite Christmas record of all time.
Sharon
· 5 months ago
I absolutely loved this week's Chart Attack. I mean, I love all the write ups, but the songs during this time are great. I'm not sure if I loved them at the time or if I enjoy them more now. The country/pop crossover songs are some of my favorites during this time.
My parents were also Denver fans and we learned to like him as well and sat through Oh God! a few times. Appropriate title, I think. I blame my parents for my love of MOR music. Heh! I'm gonna bring that up in therapy.
Thanks for another fantastic Chart Attack Jason! But, uhm, what do you mean, "...we'll see you in a COUPLE of weeks..."?!
jasonhare
· 5 months ago
So glad you enjoyed, Sharon. I pick the charts pretty much at random so it's always a crapshoot whether we're going to get good songs or not. I was pretty happy with this bunch. And I post this series every other week, so...
mojo
· 5 months ago
THere are a lot of songs I don't like, or maybe worse...maybe if you like them I might think badly of you.
But I'm Not Lisa goes farther, inducing actual nausea. That song just emits a stench.
Freddy Fender, OTOH, can do no wrong.
That is the difference between quality country and...vomiting.
All Comments
"Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glen Campbell
"I'm Sorry"/"Calypso," (double A-side single) by John Denver
"Convoy" by C.W. McCall.
Actually "Convoy" hit #1 for the week of Jan 10, 1976, but it was released in 1975 (along with the other five songs), and hit #1 on the Country charts beginning in December 1975.
WOW I still remember it just like it was yesterday. One of the few songs that came on the radio that my dad (41 years old when I was born 41 years ago) and I both liked at the time. In fact that might have been the only hit to do that particular "crossover," ever.
4. "You don't know Grand Funk? The bare-chested heroics of Mark Farner? The competent drumming of Don Brewer?"
Actually, #9 reminds me of all those awkward moments hearing "Hungry Like the Wolf" on the radio with my mom and wondering, "OK, which version are we going to hear? Do I need to change the station before the fade?"
It's funny, considering most of Linda Ronstadt's early-rock covers sucked ass, but I still think "When Will I Be Loved" stomps all over the Everlys.
The funny thing about "Love Won't Let Me Wait" is that Orgasm Girl is probably thinking, "Well, dammit, you're making ME wait long enough!" That is a much more authentic O than the one in "Love To Love You Baby."
I always figured that the Lisa in "I'm Not Lisa" was a dead girl, and that Jessi/Julie was trying to coax Waylon/Whomever past his grief, and she wouldn't give up until he was over it. And as for "Love Won't Let Me Wait," I was 15 when this song came out. Imagine how your average hormonally addled teenager felt hearing it ever three hours.
Now Chicago is like that baseball player you used to look up to, the one that knocked 'em out of the park at every step up to the plate. Now they're picking fights at conventions because they're asking for $80 just to sign a replica pennant, and it's not even a good, sturdy felt pennant. It's a recycled-underwear-and-doo-rag pennant. Their evil hag of an ex-wife is taking them to the cleaners because the botox is wearing off, the implants have burst and somebody's gotta set that junk straight. And finally, after years of abusing steroids, their nuts are like those clacker toys where you flick your wrist to get the clacker balls to snap back and forth on collision, only, they don't collide, they just swing around back 'n forth, aimless, impotent and pathetic.
But yeah, "Old Days" was hot.
"Chicago XI", the last LP they did before Terry Kath's death and source of the inferior hit "Baby, What A Big Surprise", has a couple of nice cuts that were not released as singles and did not get big FM airplay either. So "Old Days" was it. Great song.
I would not even have posted this correction except I notice a couple of pop chart connoisseurs lurking on this forum ... men/women after my own heart!
I love all of these songs! Your parents inexplicably dug John Denver? Mine dug Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. And later, the Little River Band, but we don't talk about it anymore. That purple greatest hits album of hers was a staple of my childhood. To this day if I need to be snapped out of a foul mood, her version of "You're No Good" does the trick. Either that or Level 42's first album.
We must be of an age, Jason, I can't think of John Denver without thinking of the Muppets...
My parents were also Denver fans and we learned to like him as well and sat through Oh God! a few times. Appropriate title, I think. I blame my parents for my love of MOR music. Heh! I'm gonna bring that up in therapy.
Thanks for another fantastic Chart Attack Jason! But, uhm, what do you mean, "...we'll see you in a COUPLE of weeks..."?!
But I'm Not Lisa goes farther, inducing actual nausea. That song just emits a stench.
Freddy Fender, OTOH, can do no wrong.
That is the difference between quality country and...vomiting.