If you're joining us midstream, click here to get caught up on the 1975 Hideaway 100. Here are ten more of our favorite tracks from 1975.
On first listen, "My Little Town" sounds pleasant enough with the vocal harmonies and the music's gentle groove. The song's melancholic underbelly is actually revealed from those first ominous piano chords. The lyrics are sweetly nostalgic on their face value, yet a desperate call for help just below the surface. Until a few years ago, I always heard the song as someone with no affection for their hometown, which was kind of how I felt, although as an Air Force brat, I never really had a "hometown". Once I let go of some of that residual trauma, I found comfort in this song.
Fifty years on, I still don't know what Plant is singing in "Trampled Under Foot" other than "talkin' bout love". Jones' funky clavinet chords, Bonham's punishing drums, and Page's shape-shifting blues riffs only mask Plant's rants and raves. It's heavy, whatever it is.
Olivia's sweet soft serve is the opposite of Zep's manic hand-churned funk above. "Have You Never Been Mellow" is an oddly phrased lyric that doesn't feel right in your mouth even as you sing along without even realizing it. I wonder if Olivia asked her producer, the song's composer, just why he mangled the English language to such a degree at their session. I doubt it. John Farrar seemed to have the knack for writing hit songs for Ms. Newton-John and to quote the poet J. Browne, "That girl could sing".
"Jackie Blue" sounds like a lazy summer afternoon to these fuzzy old ears. The laid-back, hypnotic groove has a groovy spaced-out guitar miles away from the manic country-rock getdown of their earlier hit "If You Wanna Get To Heaven". I became fully aware of "Jackie Blue" on my own, independent of any of my usual outside influences. Maybe one of a couple of K-Tel albums that contain the song. When I hear that opening riff, it's almost like hearing the song again for the first time, every time.
The stop-and-start rock of "Bloody Well Right" proved to be Supertramp's US chart breakthrough. The song and the album it came from (Crime Of The Century) soon became a demo disc staple in mid-70s stereo shops alongside Emerson, Lake & Palmer and The Dark Side Of The Moon. Perhaps Supertramp was too fancy-sounding for Dad or my Uncle Sam; I don't know why neither got into Crime Of The Century, though Dad was later all about the group's Breakfast In America. I discovered the song in the early '80s while listening to rock radio, specifically KLPX, where I discovered many songs I missed the first time around.
The tender grown-up lullaby "Landslide" is another healing song we enjoy as needed here at The Hideaway. Stevie Nicks sounds impossibly young here, the trademark crackles in her voice barely noticeable. I know the original 1975 version wasn't released as a single; I singled it out myself, repeatedly lifting and dropping the needle. As my tastes have broadened over time and through the tests of life, my enjoyment of the song has trebled as I play the first three songs on Side II (CD tracks 7-9) of Fleetwood Mac with "Landslide" the creamy center of a "Say You Love Me" and "World Turning" cookie.
"Money Honey" is sticky bubblegum pop with more than a smidgen of glam rock. If you had told me that the Bay City Rollers lifted the song's guitar riff from a Sweet song, I would have believed you in 1975. When I heard the Rollers' second US album for the first time, the opening track "Money Honey" blew my little mind away. It sounded more substantial, more like a "real" rock song than any song on their first album, including their Number One smash "Saturday Night". Then I heard the third track on that Rock N' Roll Love Letter album.
"Sister Golden Hair" was another song that passed through my ears for a few years without registering one bit. It isn't a ballad, so perhaps it is a little too soft for a novelty-song-loving kid who listened to whatever the adults around him were listening to. But when those Latin-tinged acoustic guitars and sweet harmonies finally hit me, courtesy of Dad's Columbia House pressing of History - America's Greatest Hits, I fell for "Sister Golden Hair" and more than a few other songs on the compilation. Can't quite put my finger on what had changed, although I've come to believe there are multiple factors in play when you listen to music, including mood, location, and how much attention you are paying to the music. One listen under the right conditions was all it took.
Local radio rocker KLPX is where I first heard "Never Been Any Reason" in late 1981. I vaguely recall thinking it was a Styx song that had somehow evaded me until further months of listening finally yielded a back announcement from their jock that the band performing the song was Head East. Another few months passed until one day at the Bookman's (a favorite used media location), I picked up a few gently used, fully guaranteed albums I had been looking for thanks to KLPX, including Red Rider's As Far As Siam, Billy Thorpe's Children Of The Sun, and Head East's Flat As A Pancake, which leads off with the drums and squiggly synth of "Never Been Any Reason".
Unlike our friend jb, we have no memories of hearing "Emma" before purchasing Volume 14 of Rhino's Super Hits Of The 70s: Have A Nice Day series in 1990. Hot Chocolate to me was a rich, sugary warm beverage best enjoyed on cold mornings and two upbeat dance tracks: "You Sexy Thing" and "Every 1's A Winner". "Emma" is an entirely different sound, though that solid rhythm and WTF guitar are certainly present. I love the vocal effects throughout "Emma" and the aforementioned sounds of Harvey Hinsley's angular guitar lines.
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