This is part five of the 1975 Hideaway 100, a ten-part countdown of our favorite songs from 1975. (Click HERE to catch up.) Some of these songs that we associate with 1975 might be in your 1974 or 1976 playlists or absent from your list of favorite songs altogether. Conversely, some songs you might be expecting to appear on the 1975 Hideaway 100 may have already appeared on our 1974 or 1976 countdowns.
Back at number 61, we featured Hot Chocolate's "Emma", and for some folks, having "Wildfire" here at number 60 constitutes two downer tracks in a row. We like both songs and acknowledge the grief and sadness in the lyrics of each track; each of these songs is only a downer if you are in a down mood. Four images come to mind when we hear "Wildfire":
1) a woman riding a horse on cold Neraska night;2) same horse busting down his stall and riding off into a blizzard with the woman calling after him and ultimately collapsing in the snow;3) a hoot owl in a tree outside a window;4) a man and the woman riding Wildfire in the afterlife.
The one that sticks with me long after I hear the song is the first one, with the woman riding a horse named Wildfire, though in my imagination, it's a beautiful sunny day, and her long brown hair is blowing in the breeze (the woman's hair, too) as they gallop through a field of wildflowers. It's the same feeling I get when I'm driving around town with the windows down, the breeze blowing across the few remaining hairs on my balding dome. You get it, right?
"Killer Queen" is a sophisticated rock song that showcases Queen's musical versatility, Freddie Mercury's unsurpassed vocal prowess, and Brian May's signature guitar genius. The song's unique fusion of vaudeville with glam rock, intricate production including numerous vocal and guitar effects, and witty lyrics full of wordplay make it a Hideaway Favorite.
My friend Mike made me a tape with The Dark Side Of The Moon on one side and Wish You Were Here on the other side. It was one of maybe a dozen tapes he dubbed for me from his impressive vinyl collection in 1981-1984. We were allowed to listen to our Walkmans during drafting class, but the majority of my daily high school Walkman time was spent riding the bus to and from school for nearly two and a half years. Got to know a couple hundred or so albums pretty well as they were repeatedly piped directly into my ears, including the pair of Pink Floyd albums on that tape. I settled into a bit of a routine, listening to DSOTM on the way downtown to school in the mornings and then enjoying WYWH on the way home in the afternoons. While I love both parts of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" that bookend the album, "Welcome To The Machine" has always stood out to me with its immersive and atmospheric sound.
There is an infectious energy musically and vocally throughout The Doobie Brothers' take on "Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me)". After trying for several years to talk his band into recording this Motown gem, singer Tom Johnston's passion for the song comes through in his soulful performance. Funk Brother Paul Riser provided the Doobie Brothers with an updated arrangement, playing to the band's strengths. Until I got the Best of the Doobie Brothers album for Easter 1977, "Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me)" was a tiny blip on my radar. Repeated plays of the album amplified that song and the rest of those on this near-perfect compilation greatly in my personal jukebox.
The Four Seasons were one of the few acts not washed off the charts by the British Invasion though by the late Sixties, the group's hitmaking days were behind them. After leaving a fruitless contract with Motown, the group had a hit with "Who Loves You", a disco-dipped updating of their signature harmonic sound. I was familiar with the group's biggest hits of the Sixties because Dad loved those tracks and played this tape often. I fell hard for the Four Seasons song "December 1963 (Oh What A Night") upon first hearing it on WLS around New Year's Day 1976 before finally finding it nearly a month later on the night my folks bought ten-year-old me a new Sounddesign stereo as an Honor Roll reward and told me to pick out a 45 to go along with it. Didn't fall for the previously released "Who Loves You" until the mighty K-Tel comp Hit Machine came into my life later in 1976.
A tinge of darkness lies just below the surface of several songs by the Carpenters. It's as if they have to take us down before they bring us up and it starts in the first verse:
After long enough of being aloneEveryone must face their share of lonelinessIn my own time, nobody knewThe pain I was goin' throughAnd waitin' was all my heart could do
Then, after a brief uplifting pre-chorus, the darkness hits again in the chorus:
Only yesterday when I was sad and I was lonelyYou showed me the way to leave the past and all its tears behind meTomorrow maybe even brighter than todaySince I threw my sadness awayOnly yesterday
Depending on my mood while listening, I'll wallow in the sadness or sing along unaffected as if the whole song was that pre-chorus:
Baby, baby, feels like maybeThings will be all rightBaby, baby, your love's made meFree as a song, singin' forever
"Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" is country music stripped to its raw emotional, storytelling core. Although he did not write it, Willie Nelson made the song his own, firmly establishing himself as a performer. The prolific listmakers at Rolling Stone have named "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" one of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time AND one of the 200 Greatest Country Songs of All Time. This Grammy-winning Number One Country single even crossed over to Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and almost broke into the Top 20 of the Hot 100. 1975 saw a lot of country cross-over hits but "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" is the definition of a timeless classic. Wink Martindale had the honor of first introducing the single on American Top 40 as he subbed for Casey Kasem on the October 11, 1975, episode.
There is a power within Barry Manilow's "It's A Miracle" that hit me the first time I heard it as Dad played the Barry Manilow II album he'd just received from Columbia House. It's that driving, celebratory power that propelled the song onto the dancefloor and the Disco chart. Listening to "It's A Miracle" fifty years later, it still has the propulsive power I first picked up on but the recording sounds a little flat, very two-dimensional in our immersive Atmos world. As long as my hearing allows it, I'll be a stereo man but memories of "It's A Miracle" coming out of the speaker in glorious AM mono are hard to beat.
"I'm On Fire" is another prime example of a timeless track. It is performed, recorded, and produced so that a listener may have difficulty identifying the era the song was released, much like the Willie Nelson track above. A raw palpable energy is captured here along with enough hooks for half a dozen songs. Also like "Blue Eyes Crying in The Rain", "I'm On Fire" is the very definition of its genre; in this case, it's polished power pop with a driving rhythm and rockin' riffs.
You know, I love you, yeah
You know, I love you
Yes, I do!
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