Radar Love - Golden Earring (1974)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1974, #64

Minimalism. Radar Love is just pure, simple Rock N' Roll. Most of the song is a guitar, a bass and drums. A bit of horns is thrown in for a bigger crescendo toward the end. Nothing else - no strings, no synthesizers, no backup singers.

The raw, deliberately UNDER-produced sound makes it stand out among the songs of its day. It also leaves little room for error. Kind of like a model without her makeup: she's got to be extraordinary.

All I can think of is Raquel Welch... (really, that's all I can think of.)

Superstition - Stevie Wonder (1973)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1973, #26

You've probably heard Superstition so many times, you can't even remember what it sounds like anymore. You may have even gotten so burned out on it that you refuse to listen to it anymore.

Get it on your iPod. Get a high-quality recording of it. Play it loud - not excessively, but loud enough. Listen to every beat, the bass-line, every horn. Follow how tight together the instruments play, and how they drift apart and find each other again. Notice the seamless blending of Jazz, Rock, and Funk. It's like all the greatest musicians of the day gathered together, and unanimously agreed Stevie should sing.

It's a masterpiece.

Papa Was A Rollin' Stone - The Temptations (1973)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1973, #100

By most standards, Papa Was A Rollin' Stone shouldn't even be a hit. It's almost two full minutes before the first word is sung. It's a song is about an estranged, drifter, con-man, polygamous father with illegitimate kids. It ought to be an episode of Jerry Springer.

So then why is it so great? It's infectious - that two minute intro builds up like the opening of a suspense movie. When the singing finally starts, you're hooked. The Temptations sound more like that group of guys singing around an oil barrel on an inner-city street corner than their usual polished Motown Pop.

Mostly, you'll never hear a better chorus.

I Just Want To Celebrate - Rare Earth (1971)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1971, #66

Here's a song just to get you fired up.

Whether you're going on a weekend road trip, or you're stuck home on a rainy Saturday with ten loads of laundry, I defy you to listen to it and not be in a better mood.

If you've had the fortune of ever hearing Rare Earth play this live, I'd love it if you'd share it with us here.

Woodstock - Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (1971)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1971, #79

Well, I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, Tell me, where are you going?
This he told me

Said, I'm going down to Yasgur's Farm,
Gonna join in a rock and roll band.
Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.

[chorus]
We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Well, then can I roam beside you?
I have come to lose the smod,
And I feel myself a cog in somethin' turning.
And maybe it's the time of year,
Yes and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning.

By the time we got to Woodstock,
We were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song and a celebration.
And I dreamed I saw the bomber jet planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are caught in the devils bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Woodstock was actually written by Joni Mitchell, who in fact didn't even attend the show, but instead wrote it while watching TV from a New York City hotel room. Her agent insisted that it was most important she appear on the Dick Cavett Show.

David Crosby said "She captured the feeling and importance of the Woodstock festival better than anyone who’d been there.” In her words: "The deprivation of not being able to go provided me with an intense angle on Woodstock."Joni's version is a wistful, almost aching ballad.

Crosby, Still, Nash and Young, of course, did make the show. They turned the song right on it's head, reuniting the sound of the festival itself with the lyrics that couldn't be there.

Riders On The Storm - The Doors (1971)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1971, #99

It's unacceptable to listen to Riders On The Storm in dry weather. It has to be raining - no excuses.

And nighttime. Or at least dusk.

I like to play it while I'm driving. The sound of the rain hitting outside the car mingles with the rainy sound effect in the song, plus the piano and bass-lines, creating something of a super-stereo effect.

I know it's a cliche; I don't care. The Doors bring music and nature like lovers reunited.

(Okay I know - cheesy - sorry. Best I could think of. You try writing a hundred of these!)

Lola - The Kinks (1970)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1970, #52

Here's a little story you'll like.

A couple of years ago, my stepson, then about 13, was at the computer, rocking out to Lola.

I asked him, "Do you have any idea what that song's ABOUT??"

He looked at me blankly and said, "No. Why?"

"Go look up the lyrics."

He typed it in, clicked around, then started reading. The look on his face slowly changed from confusion to disgust. "She's a... hermaphrodite??"

"Transvestite," I corrected. I proceeded to explain the difference. He definitely chose the wrong word for what he meant.

"Dude," he said, still a little grossed out. "Well, it's still a cool song."

Indeed.

Fire And Rain - James Taylor (1970)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]
Billboard Top 100, 1970, #67

One of the most poignant lines I've ever heard:

Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

Fire And Rain is the original soundtrack to despair. James Taylor writes an agonizingly personal lyric, touching on death, addiction, failure, and depression, and somehow everyone in America thinks it's a song written in their name.

A great song can have that effect.

You Don't Mess Around With Jim - Jim Croce (1972)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]
Billboard Top 100, 1972, #68

In the early 1970s, Jim Croce had a string of quaint-but-catchy hits, making him one of the more famous singer-songwriters of the time. The most famous of these songs was Bad, Bad Leroy Brown. The best of them is You Don't Mess Around With Jim.

I can't help but imagine this song was created on the spot, in the very pool hall mentioned. I envision a dimly-lit, seedy little joint, cloudy from smoke. Next to a stage the size of a postage stamp is a bar where you can get any drink you want, so long as it's whiskey or beer.

This song was one of the first one I ever learned the words to. I still enjoy it a lot: if you appreciate lyrics, these are good ones. If not, it's still catchy.

Rocket Man (I Think It's Gonna Be A Long, Long Time) - Elton John (1972)

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[1970-1974 Best Songs]

Billboard Top 100, 1972, #40

Let's face it, most Pop music from the early 70s - well, sucks. (You had to know by this point I wasn't going to be putting The Carpenters, Captain & Tenille or Helen Reddy on your beloved iPod, right?)

And that's what makes the songs of Elton John, especially Rocket Man, so extraordinary. He uses the same piano, strings, a little guitar, and drums, to make a dynamic sound where everyone else could only succeed in creating "Easy Listening" (I still can't figure out that name, it's a struggle for me to listen to...)

This too applies to Bernie Taupin, with lyrics just a little more nuanced than you'll ever get from, say, Tony Orlando.

Which is why, when it comes on the radio, you're singing along to Rocket Man instead of changing the station ...or inducing vomiting.