A Bear-ican Top 40:

March 14, 1972

So I turn 51 today.

That is, assuming you read this on March 14. I may have just bailed again on this article and it got posted in November.

Birthdays are either a magical time, just another day in the life, or a Burma Shave sign on your assigned Bataan Death March of the mind.

Depending on how you feel, reminiscing is either a good idea, or verbal flagellation about age. I still like my birthday, however, and as a result:

I have a new task here at the mt-named A Bear-ican Top 40.

And that is to look back and review…well…

Let’s go the whole eight and a half yards, and peep the Top 51 songs on the Billboard Chart for March 14, 1972.

The first 11 are just free. The next 50, well, that’s gonna cost you.

On with the countdown (where all songs are rated at the end):

51:

The Music Box Dancer guy could sing, actually.

And he was a member of The Bells just before they had their Top 10 hit Stay Awhile in 1971. Unfortunately, the story-song here drags a bit. 5.

50:

Downcast blues about the tenuous grip on reality we all possess, and the possibility of losing it.

If you can instantly hear Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up in the melody, you get a gold star for learning the source of that reggae classic. 7.

49:

A Buffy Sainte-Marie classic taking into the charts by singers ranging from Neil Diamond to Barbra Streisand, the song about loving someone you can’t have was about to have its big pop-crossover moment. Col. Parker reportedly may have tried to steal a composing credit for Elvis from Buffy, who wisely avoided the con. 6.

48:

Based on a poem by Manny Rosen, it’s an anti-drug song from the point of view of heroin. So, it’s really, really dark, and set to a slow, brooding, bluesy beat. As such, it’s potent. 8.

47:

A real potent soul song, telling some four-flusher man where to get off after trying to play her.

This Memphis soul bit is going to come up many times here, but the straightforward plain talk cuts to the quick with some wonderful grit. 9

46:

Written by Mike d’Abo, lead singer of Manfred Mann, it’s a warning to young girls that there’s more to life than just trendy, pretty things. Relevant today, but this version recorded in 1969, released after the success of Maggie May, is still pretty raw Rod, though the bit of oboe almost steers it into twee. 7.

45:

I’ll let you know when that happens.

Until then, it’s what happens when you drop the zero to get with the hero. Definite Martha Reeves vibes here, which suits a band founded and signed by ex-Motown songwriter Brian Holland, and singed to Holland-Dozier-Holland’s post-Motown Record label Hot Wax. 7.

44:

Another Detroit soul number, though Westbound Records was no Motown.

Definite O’Jays vibes from this vocal group on their first Top 40 pop hit, though. 6

43:

It’s actually the lesser-known single from the movie Shaft.

The single released after the Oscar-winning theme, and it’s a simple nod to you. Whatever you want to do, just do it. Right on, no explanations necessary. It’s so easygoing that you feel the vibe all the way down. Write on, bear. 8.

42:

When it came up on The Number Ones over at Stereogum, I know Tom Breihan was pleased when he called it a “blissed-out daydream.”

Some folks in the TNOCS family over there were approving, but there were a few stragglers who weren’t buying in. I wrote there that it was “one of the more erotic songs to reach #1”, and I hold firm to that, because the very sparse, very low-key empty spaces within the music are enough to get your motor running. And what’s being sung, what she’s forcing you to listen closely to, is full of romantic desire in a most gloriously ethereal fashion. A classic all over again. 10.

41:

Yeah, there’s an element of forever here, but likely not the one Wes Farrell and Bell Records were hoping for.

The second single from David’s album Cherish was a follow-up to the title track, a similarly drone-like cover of The Association’s ballad, and all the intentions they had of offering Keith Partridge mature material away from the TV music he sang fell away like Alice down a rabbit hole. 4.

40:

Without Eddie Kendricks or David Ruffin, both of whom having left the group in a cloud of bitterness, the group’s vocal blend was left in limbo. I

t didn’t help that producer Norman Whitfield seemed to give the group more psychedelic soul or social commentary songs, to the group’s dismay. This one is about looking around and seeing what’s going on, but the five 1972 Temptations don’t equal one Marvin Gaye. 5.

39:

Bobby Vinton will be 88 next month.

In 1972 he was still widely popular enough to keep appearing in the Top 40, although his material was almost restricted to covers of older, creakier ballads, like this version of a 1957 hit for the McGuire Sisters. Even if they all basically sounded the same by now, audiences were very forgiving. He would be a couple years away from the radical turn that gave his career a large boost. Singing in Polish will do that. 5

38:

Motown was a towering figure on this Top 40, and Donnie Elbert got his only two Top 40 hits in 1971 and 1972, with covers of songs by The Supremes The Four Tops. These hits sparked a bit of nostalgia, but even these soulful stomps couldn’t dispel a feeling of repetition, in a way the Motown classics never did. 5.

37:

Latin rock with the signature Santana sound, and a classic-rock staple on the radio.

And yet it’s the interpolation in 1990 I remember better: the first bilingual rap song to hit the Top 40, Mellow Man Ace’s #14 hit Mentirosa. That one, about a lying girlfriend, used a bunch of Santana samples…that were never cleared nor royalties paid, which got him into hot water. It’s not a better song, but it’s a little more fun, and less heavy. 6.

36:

Another rap song with a 1989-1990 connection, Young MC’s Bust A Move, lifted the break from Dennis Coffey’s 1971 #6 hit Scorpio (peaked at #6; it’s a 9) and broke a logjam of creative sampling into the 1990s. Taurus, though, is a different animal: less immediate, a little more thoughtful. And no one of note has sampled it. C’est la vie. 6.

35:

The penultimate Top 40 hit for the pop-rockers, it has the shiny, full production of their older hits, but it also feels a bit more like 1969 than 1972, like the style has aged a bit. I can’t find anything necessarily odious, but I also probably won’t remember it in 29 minutes, either. 6.

34:

Sweeping dreamy pop in the vein of the Mike Curb Congregation, but only better.

They were The Congregation in the UK, but added “English” to avoid conflict with that other group in the US. They were created by the formidable songwriting duo of Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, which contrasted a traditional English choir with rock sounds, all against that sweeping arrangement. It actually works a little better in a Muzak setting. 6.

33:

As this chart goes on, you’re going to spot a few instances of really bad songs.

There is a cover that might be the worst thing put to vinyl since Hailey Bieber tried on a vinyl micro-mini last month for Vogue. I wanna unload on this so bad, but covering Bobby Day’s #2 hit from 1958, isn’t a bad idea for MJ, considering he was 13 at the time and teen-pop was the ultimate goal for him at Motown. It’s not the kid; it’s the production, which kinda overdoses on kitsch and sugar and it leaves you on a sugar crash. 5.

32:

Depending on the ears, some songs are an artist’s “lost songs”, a hidden gem of a record that you likely haven’t heard because other songs in the catalog were much more popular. Until I started collecting American Top 40 shows as MP3’s to listen to frequently, I hadn’t heard much beyond the Top 40’s surface.

This is one of those songs, a gentle ballad where the cowboy rides away without the girl, basically. It has a verse, a chorus, a bridge, and that’s all, though it’s sung twice, once by Robin Gibb, and once by Barry Gibb. Robin’s parts kinda take some girding of the loins to get through, but Barry, as usual for him, is pretty sublime. And though it’s limited in scope, it’s still a pretty darn good lost song. 8

31:

If you can find a way past the obtuse lyrics, it’s a bit enjoyable slice of 1970s folk-pop. The trouble is the lyrics are obtuse, and outside of the feeling that it’s about a spiritual journey of some kind, it seems like a little too much trouble to go through five minutes of repetition. There is nothing wrong with being direct, y’know. 6.

30:

When Prince covered this in 1996, he assumed he was covering a Stylistics original.

But he wasn’t. The first person to have a hit with this was actress Connie Stevens, all the way back in 1970, under the name Keep Growing Strong. The song was rearranged into a slower, grander, more easily-flowing track by the Stylistics, and released as the follow-up to You Are Everything. It’s another stone classic soul track, from a group that made it all look too easy. 9.

29:

First thing I think of when I think about this is Angie Dickinson in Big Bad Mama:

A 1974 exploitation crime film by Roger Corman (and, curiously, NOT the 1975 film produced by Corman with Cloris Leachman). This has nothing to do with all that, though, as Cale’s Tulsa sound, a mix of low-key rock, blues and a little country, is the antithesis of “action”. That’s to his benefit, as the guy who wrote After Midnight, Cocaine and Call Me The Breezedidn’t require big sound to put this vibe over. 8.

28:

Some songs require an edit for their best listen. This isn’t one of them.

As an ex-DJ in the classic-rock format, I’m perhaps biased by my need for a bathroom break. Still, the eight-and-a-half-minute version contains a lot of prog on guitar and organ that makes for a great experience. Inspired by the many roundabouts on the road between Aberdeen and Glasgow, the song’s really meant for groovin’, not explainin’. Bonus point for the final breakdown of harmonies in the final moments, really Crosby, Stills and Nash-worthy. 9.

27:

Oh, good, the theme of this series is called out.

In actuality, though, it went ham on hypocrites, and let’s face it, in 1972 there were ones on every corner. James was speaking out to politicians who usually promised the moon with an empty hand, but he also put some of the militant elements of the civil rights movements on blast, all for loud rhetoric and invisible promises. The album cut runs some 14 minutes, the single version just 3, and curiously enough, the song hasn’t been used as frequently in hip-hop sampling as others in James’s catalog. 7

26:

These brothers knew from strong pop songs, as they wrote “Never My Love” for The Association.

I always assumed there was a connection with R&B for these guys, who look on the single sleeve like future Playgirl models from the late-1970s, but it just turns out they knew their way around steamy soft-rock sounds. That’s, I guess, good enough. 6.

Coming up next time:

• Some baffling covers
• A trilogy of torch songs
• And maybe one of the more convincing rockers from Utah.

Also: leftover ice cream cake if you want some.

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