Listomania! - 1972

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."

Don Corleone

1972. The Godfather, A Clockwork Orange, Deliverance. A great year for movies. It was also the year of my first slow dance with a girl (thank you Laurie!) and the year that Watergate hit the news. But, the biggest thing that year was the Canada-U.S.S.R. hockey series in September. It captured my attention like nothing before and I was glued to the TV for every game. It's one of those moments where you can remember exactly where you were when Henderson scored his famous winning goal. I hated the Russians back then, but I feel quite differently now. It was as much a battle of politics as it was hockey, but I knew nothing of politics back then really. I believed what I was told and I was told the Russians were the bad guys. Unbeknownst to me, our school let everyone watch the game in the gymnasium instead of having class. The game was played at 2 in the afternoon our time and I thought if I went to school I'd miss it, so I was allowed to stay home that day and missed the communal experience of celebrating with my friends. Instead, my Mom and I jumped around the room and cheered and yelled. It was truly unforgettable. This list had several great songs cut from it to make 10 and that is regrettable. For instance, I couldn't decide on a song from one of my fave albums, Exile On Main St., so I just left it out. But, here's the list:

Top 10 Of 1972

10. Remake, Remodel - Roxy Music

I was going to pick Ladytron, but only because it would make Steve laugh. The first song on Roxy's first album begins, appropriately, with the sounds of a cocktail party. Then the band crashes in, a cacaphony of sound, all Brian Eno's crazy synth and Andy Mackay's wild sax and Phil Manzanera's wicked guitar. Bryan Ferry's voice sounds so young back then, but it is still unmistakably Ferry. The "CPL - 593H" backing vocal supposedly came from a license plate on a car that Ferry saw being driven by a hot young thing. The coolest part is near the end when each player takes a solo on his instrument echoing famous songs past and present such as The Beatles' Day Tripper, Duane Eddy's Peter Gunn, and Wagner's Ride Of The Valkyries. The album cover featured a model on the cover, which would remain a Roxy Music staple on each subsequent cover. "Next time is the best time, we all know. But if there is no next time, where to go?" How about Amazona?

9. Old Man - Neil Young

This song reminds me of listening to the radio in my room and wailing along with Neil. From his breakthrough record, Harvest, Neil wrote it about the caretaker on his newly purchased California ranch. I love the pedal steel guitar on this and it was the first time I realized that pedal steel wasn't just for Conway Twitty records. It was recorded in Nashville when Neil went there to appear on the Johnny Cash TV show. The other guests that night were James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, so Neil invited them into the studio, where they sat on a couch and recorded the backing vocals. Taylor also played a fantastic banjo solo on this. "Love lost, such a cost, give me things that don't get lost. Like a coin that won't get tossed, rolling home to you." This was when AM radio ruled my world.

8. Go All The Way - The Raspberries

Those huge guitar chords still get me every time. They just come blasting in and wow! The Raspberries were another Cleveland band, led by singer / guitarist Eric Carmen. Hmm, Eric Carmen you say.... the same dude who had solo hits later with All By Myself and Hungry Eyes? Yes, one and the same. Don't hate him for that though, he needed the money. His falsetto is great on this one as it lifts the gorgeous melody to heights attained by only a select few. This song sports an obvious Beatles fetish too, which, for me, is never a bad thing. I remember the 45 was on Capitol Records and I wore that sucker right out. The album was even cooler though. It had a scratch 'n' sniff raspberry on the cover, which may sound like a great idea, but in every record store I went to back then, the cellophane would be ripped off from people doing the scratch 'n' sniff thing but not buying the record. "Before her love I was cruel and mean. I had a hole in the place where my heart should have been." In rock music, girls either cause or fix all the problems.

7. Baby Blue - Badfinger

Another Power Pop gem! Joey Molland's guitar runs in this, and his short but sweet solo, are the dog's bollocks! The doomed Pete Ham wrote another amazing song and sings it oh so well. It was produced by none other than the genius Todd Rundgren, who produced half the album while George Harrison produced the other half. This became a favourite of mine when I was grounded for breaking our basement window with a puck and I would play this over and over during my week of boredom. Hooks a go-go all over this tune! "Guess I got what I deserve. Kept you waiting there too long, my love." Speaking of Beatle fetishes....

6. Five Years - David Bowie

Ziggy Stardust is not my fave Bowie record. That honour would fall to Hunky Dory. There, I said it. It's a great record, but it always received way too much acclaim I thought. If you had asked me when I was 16, I would have chosen Suffragette City as the top song on this record. Bu,t for several years now, I have liked this one best. This apocalyptic vision of being told the world will end in 5 years is a brilliant piece of music. Steve and I used to go to a bar called Key West in the mid 80s. There were these 2 girls who called themselves Edna & Edna and they played there on Sundays. They played a wicked cover of this and I think that set it in stone that this was my top song from Ziggy. Set to a military-march drumbeat, it has a winsome tone that Bowie really puts across with his ace vocal. The piano part is beautiful too. "And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people, and all the nobody people, and all the somebody people. I never though I'd need so many people." I didn't name my son Zowie though.....

5. Dialogue Pt. 1 & 2 - Chicago

Another brilliant song penned by the keyboard player Robert Lamm, this was, believe it or not, a single that was played on mainstream radio back then. It was shortened down quite a bit, but nothing like this would ever be allowed to be released as a single by today's record companies. It is a trade-off sung by a pessimist ( guitarist Terry Kath) and an optimist ( bassist and future warbler of horrid make-out crap like If You Leave Me Now Peter Cetera). The amazing guitar played by Kath is something that you should hear, if you haven't heard it already, so imaginative and so original! The pessimist questions pretty much everything, but the optimist's sunny worldview eventually wins him over. They join forces in the second half of the song and sing "We can make it better" and "We can make it happen" and "We can change the world." But the really cool thing is the ending, which makes the listener question whether the optimist was indeed correct in his outlook, as the song ends abruptly half way through the word "happen." Truly a great concept tune! "Will you try to change things, use the power that you have, the power of a million new ideas? What is this power you speak of and this need for things to change? I always thought that everything was fine." The more things change, the more they stay the same.

4. Perfect Day - Lou Reed

From his biggest album, Transformer, this is one of the saddest, most touching ballads ever recorded. David Bowie and his guitarist Mick Ronson co-produced the album, and their fingerprints are all over it. Walk On The Wild Side was a great single, but this song is the heart of the record in my opinion. Ronson arranged the beautiful strings and also played the gorgeous piano part. This song came to modern prominence when it was used in the movie Trainspotting. I love the hurtful sarcasm in the lyrics, which some have said are about Lou's feelings about being a heroin addict. "Just a perfect day, you made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good." Gets ya right there.

3. Stay With Me - The Faces

Ok, so the party's kind of a drag, and I'm almost asleep. All of a sudden, someone with great taste fires this on the old turntable. I awake with a start and begin trashing the furniture and playing air guitar like a friggin' nutjob! That sums up how I feel about this rave-up, rocking gem of a tune! The Faces are so sloppy and noisy and dirty! The keyboards in this song rank right up near the top in anything I've ever heard. Rod is at his rooster-strutting best here, belting out the misogynistic lyrics in his trademark hoarse-voiced way. Please excuse the awful tone of the lyrics and just listen to this band kick ass and take names! The sound of this record would be what you would play for a Martian if he landed on Earth and wanted to know what rock music was. " Yeah I'll pay your cab fare home, you can even use my best cologne, just don't be here in the morning when I wake up." Attention groupies: This guy won't buy you dinner.

2. The Ballad Of El Goodo - Big Star

I would argue that this is maybe the best melody that a person could ever write. The plucking of the guitar strings alone makes this great! Written and sung by the mad, brilliant, recently-departed Alex Chilton, this sounds nothing like the blue-eyed soul of his previous band The Box tops. These guys are the Godfathers of the Power Pop genre in my books. They influenced, and continue to influence, too many bands to name. Yet, in the 70s, they sold about 10 records, mostly to family and friends, due to bad record deals and no promotion. I never heard of them until about 1986 when I found out about their influence on one of my favourite bands at the time, Let's Active. This is from their awe-inspiring and cheekily-titled debut #1 Record. If you don't already know this album, run to your local shop and grab it. Definitely in my top 20 of all time! "I've been built up and trusted, broke down and busted. They'll get theirs and we'll get ours if you can just hold on." Children by the millions scream for Alex Chilton!

1. Hello It's Me - Todd Rundgren

Right from the first bubbly, perky little bass line, it just grabs you and pulls you in. This is Pop perfection kids! I remember watching an episode of a show that was on ABC on Friday nights in the early 70s called In Concert and Todd walked out on stage with a boom-box, set it down, pushed play and sang this with all the music pre-taped. It blew me away! I'd never seen anybody do that before. He was one of the first studio wizards, a true star! This is from side 4 of his opus Something / Anything, the side on which he uses a band, unlike the other 3 sides of the record where he plays all the instruments himself. Future disco 1 hit wonder Vicki Sue Robinson (Turn The Beat Around) just kills on backing vocals here, along with the stellar band. This was used in the first episode of That 70s Show, where the gang all go to a Todd concert in Milwaukee. I know, what a hokey sentimentalist I am! I'm not sure it's a true love song, but if it is, it's the best one ever written! "Seeing you, or seeing anything as much as I do you. I take for granted that you're always there. I take for granted that you just don't care. Sometimes I can't help seeing all the way through." Oh joy, oh bliss!