For the record, the first time that all three shared a Top 40 appearance all at once appears to be January 22, 1966.

And indeed, it’s one that was explored many times by Dave Holmes, former MTV, current Esquire editor-at-large, and a guy whose appetite for the Top 40 viewed as a whole from a distance exceeds mine.

For Esquire, and for New York Magazine’s Vulture column, Dave would occasionally take a Billboard Top 40 chart from a specific date, turn it on its ear, and give it his own personal sense of context.

Those columns were, and are, fun to read, because I share that same fascination of pop culture rabbit-holing.

Let’s look at the hits from February 11, 1978, at a moment where there was a similar winter weather event raging where I grew up on Long Island, where they got 17 inches of snow on the back end of a very busy snowy season.

At all of 5 years old, I had too much time on my hands then, too.

Which fits, because Star Wars was still in theaters, seven months after its unassuming debut steamrolled pop culture into a Death Star.

This final pop hit for the funk-rock-soul group War was literally funky, rockin’ stuff that’s outta sight. 8

Not the famous nursery rhyme, nor the infamous Andrew Dice Clay one, but it uses them to make a point that didn’t seem kinda dubious as it does now.

Fortunately, Ray Parker, Jr. would write an answer to his own song, on A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do), in which Jack gets his comeuppance and Jill gets even. 7

She was at a personal peak by this time, and the proof was in her two 1978 TV appearances: a Frank Sinatra TV special, and her own special with Johnny Mathis, Stephen Bishop, and Earth, Wind & Fire on CBS that April.

Our Love would fit either place. 8

Just not this one, arriving immediately after the hypnotic, classic technodisco track I Feel Love.

As generic as the story of a modern-day Cinderella is, though, Donna hits notes they have yet to detect in space and holds them with grace that is missing from modern pop music. 7

And slow-burning, as this is make-out music for the age of Saturday Night Fever, which will come up again.

Is it sung well? That’s a matter of taste, and it’s besides the point, as if it’s good make-out music, and you’re good at the task at hand, you shouldn’t even notice it. Mostly, I never noticed, anyway. 7

It’s soft and squishy easy-listening pop, and it seems better at promoting digestion than promoting romance.

That said, LeBlanc & Carr are very lucky people: they were bumped from the ill-fated flight in 1977 that would kill several members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. 3

Her take on this Motown classic offers more blues and rock than soul, and she’s always a capable vocalist, but there’s a certain spirit that seems a bit lacking.

Competence over fun isn’t always a blessing. 6

A stoic cover of the Sam Cooke classic about hopeful young love could seem, there’s absolutely no place on the Billboard pop landscape for a song like this today.

Even though my taste for lite-rock, shaped by my time spent in radio working those formats, is unchallenged -it, too, is more nourishing than entertaining. 5

Each single played a role in the SNF universe: this one was the key party track that centers the movie, when Travolta’s character starts a line dance at 2001, with the dry ice-er, smoke, bellowing from the dance floor.

It’s every bit as full of life as the opening strut to… a later song, and every bit the match as a #1 track. 10

It didn’t take on the mantle of Dion and the Belmonts very convincingly, especially with a steel drum(?) solo, but the memories weren’t too bad to picture in other contexts.

It’s hard to imagine Mobile as a center for Caucasian doo-wop from a bygone era. 5

And as a footnote in the record books:for the longest note held by a singer with a Top 40 pop hit, a high E at 18 seconds.

It was always a lovely day with this man in it, and low-key happiness never felt so lovely indeed. 9

In which Wilma’s anniversary present from Fred turned out to be a stolen piano, upon which was played an obnoxious, deliberately repetitive anniversary song.

This isn’t that, and the music’s tight, and still there’s a lot of so-what going on. 6

But when I think of the song, I think of the 1969 TV series which co-stared SSJ and earned her an Emmy.

As it happens, though, the Penny Lane-esque flourishes, the intricate harmonies, the description of burgeoning romance could have been an award-winner for mythical drama all its own. 9

Danger Island? …well, the plot’s barely there, but it seems to be a kiddie version of Live And Let Die, crossed with Lord Of The Flies. And starring Jan-Michael Vincent.

Or something, because it was a bit dim even for me, an overgrown kid at heart. Anyway, the two visions intermingle with this song about sex featuring some nice harmonies and guitar by Joe Walsh.

Also, Jay wrote the theme to The Office, for those who care. 7

The theme is based on a five-note motif within the movie, but here it’s drowned in the campy disco you expected to find on radio in, say, 1976.

There is a better version out there… 4

See, the feeling I always got when I featured this song in my memory bank was one of ffrivolity without much feeling or emotion ffermenting in its core.

But it features a fflute solo that stokes the ffire of ffancy earworm magic. Gotta love the disco era for ffeaturng a lot of ffluff without fforgetting the ffire of ffinely thrilling ffreefform ffunk. 7

The band’s drummer said that it’s not exactly a song they wasted time on, y’know, actually writing, it was just a chant.

And sometimes that’s enough. 7

Jeff Lynne is one of those musicians that never seems to get their due for the way they invent a wall of sound without having to murder to get it.

In 2017, though, when they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, it seemed a lot of folks finally remembered that they really weren’t a one-man band that deserved anonymity. 8

It’s subtle and sleek, and a stylin’ appreciation of the hard-knock people on the club scene of the late-‘70s.

On the one hand, “You’re no tramp, but you’re no lady”, but on the other, “You’re the heart and soul of New York City.

Which – I was 5, after all – but once Thelma Evans danced to it on an episode of Good Times, I admit that I understood it (OK, later, but I did). 8

There’s a bit of intricate guitar on the intro, and a cold wall of horns at the end, and in between there’s a lot of shouting about surviving, once more, in New York City.

An autobiographical note for Lou Gramm, who had moved there from Rochester, upstate.

There’s a certain foreboding going on that I liked, playing against type. 8

There’s a reason, and it’s John Williams’s fun, contemporary approach to that five-note serenade key to the movie.

This isn’t your usual soundtrack score song; it’s better, because it actually sounds like you could hear it fresh on AM or FM pop radio.

The synth is clean, the rhythm is pop, and it hits a groove that makes it bore into your head a little bit. I bought it as a completist, and walked away a fan. 9