BCPL is turning 50 this year! Celebrating with the top five songs from the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 Singles of 1974 is a must. I jumped at the opportunity to look back over songs from my childhood.
I remember the first time that I heard this song. I was listening to my favorite radio station, WSAI-AM, “1360 ON YOUR RADIO DIAL!” The disk jockey promised a prize to the first caller who knew the title of the song and the artist. Nobody claimed the prize. It turned out to be a trick! This was the song’s debut on the station. Factoid: Michael Jackson danced The Robot for the first time while performing this song on Soul Train.
Listening to this song makes me want to steal the oft-repeated phrase “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it” from all of the teens who reviewed songs on American Bandstand. “Come and Get Your Love,” written by brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas, marked the first time that a Native American band reached the top five on the Billboard Hot 100. The song features an electric sitar.
This is an instrumental written by Barry White who is best known for his deep, smooth voice. The Love Unlimited Orchestra was similar to Booker T. and the M.G’s in that both were used as house bands backing up other artists on their recording labels. A shortened version of this tune was used in the opening sequence of the televised PGA Tour on ABC for several years in the 70’s.
This song was beloved enough to earn the number 2 spot for 1974. However, after holding the number 1 position on the charts for three weeks and being in the top 40 for two months, “Seasons in the Sun” also made its way onto numerous critics’ lists of the worst songs recorded in the 70’s. The song is seared into my memory as the song that I selected on a jukebox in a Renfro Valley restaurant–only to be mortified when the record skipped incessantly. (Life is so dramatic when you’re a kid.) An eye-rolling waitress went over and hit the jukebox with her hip. I didn’t play another jukebox for years!
This song won two Academy Awards for the film of the same name. It also won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 1974 and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1975. It was so popular that Gladys Knight & The Pips also had a hit with it in 1974, peaking at number 11. As a child, I wasn’t a huge fan, but older me has an appreciation for it.
