1984 saw this cut from Julian Lennon's debut album reach #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, teasing hopes of a belated Beatles' reformation, with son Julian sitting in for his recently assassinated father John. But it was all tease, and nothing ever materialized, except this track showing everyone what might have been.
The only way you get more 1960s than this instrumental classic is if you're listening to it on your 500-pound combination AM/FM/turntable/stereo speaker cabinet. Don Draper, Matt Helm, and Sean Connery's 007 would all approve. The band for this track included session musicians like Doc Severinsen, before he became Johnny Carson's paisley-coated music maestro. This cover by Warren Kime and Brass Impact followed Sergio Mendes' version featuring Herb Alpert, which version hit #47 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, and was done yet again with Sergio and the Black Eyed Peas, and included on the soundtrack for the animated feature Rio in 2011.
If ever a rock song should have been brought to life word for word and then immortalized in animated form, it's Bad Company's Top 13 hit from 1979, but when Heavy Metal came out in 1981, they totally missed the bus on that. (Pro Tip: Anyone looking to make a name as an animated director, the song is still right there, waiting and ripe for this to happen.)
This masterwork was a classic in 1977 just by being a Marvin Hamlisch work performed by Carly Simon. Dropping it in as the title piece to a James Bond flick, after the single-most awesome opening stunt in Bond history, just added booster rockets to the launch. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts that year, and was Simon's longest-charting song.
Today's pick is a Top Five hit from 1977 by quintessential American singer/songwriter Paul Simon. Dedicated to the patient with no quality of life, made a DNR, but kept alive by his family probably out of guilt, long past the time they should have just let go, told him they loved him, and whispered into his ear "Walk towards the light...". There's nothing less fun than watching your patient's blood pressure slide down and circle the drain, without quite bottoming out, and then the family panics, and decides at the last minute they want you to do everything short of actual CPR. For some reason, couldn't get this song out of my head all night.
England Dan (Dan Seals) and John Ford Coley's easy listening hit from May 1976 that went to #2 in the U.S.
One-hit wonder Fiona Apple's fifteen minutes of fame from 1997, providing her with a #21 hit and the first of three Grammys, along with her first and last moments of actual commercial success, boosted in no small part by this video that played in heavy MTV rotation, back when the channel actually played music videos. Dedicated today to the entire current Department of Justice, from the top down.
Number 10 hit release from March 1981, released three months after John Lennon's death, and six months after he'd celebrated his 40th birthday.
Dedicated to the pilots and ground crew of the 13th Bomb Squadron, in honor of their literally blockbusting magnum opus on their recent Southwest Asia field trip, comes this AC/DC Top 40 6x Platinum hit from 1980.
Released in July of 1965, barely four months into what would balloon into Mr. Johnson's War, in the heart of the civil rights movement, this epic 6-minute monster transitioned Bob Dylan from folk musician into rock star, and lit up a generation, rocketing to Number 2, and taking a place among the greatest songs of the century. Listen close, folks. This isn't just Dylan's mid-60s bluesy bile as the fantasy of Camelot morphed into napalming jungles. "When you got nothin' you got nothin' to lose." The song's message isn't over yet. You are seeing, and will see, this material again. "How does it feel?"
There was no way we could know the week we picked Kokomo as Sunday Music would be the same one in which Brian Wilson passed away a few days later. But it's definitely the reason we're putting this classic up as today's choice the Sunday after that, having also been written and produced by Wilson, with lyrics by fellow Beach Boy Mike Love, after becoming the longest and costliest studio track in production history to that point in time. After taking most of 1966 to nail down, it was released in October of 1966, and became the Beach Boys' third ever #1 hit by December of that year, spending seven weeks at the top of the charts, and eventually becoming one of the most influential singles of all time after double platinum status.
One last trip around the bases for the Beach Boys, as their first new hit in 20+ years, and their last Top 40 hit. Dropped as a single in 1988, and also part of the soundtrack for the Tom Cruise flick du jour, Cocktail, and despite critical disdain, the Beach Boys rode it all the way to platinum certification, and #1 on the charts that year.
Only Paul McCartney, 6 years post-Beatle breakup in 1976, could sit down and write a song about the foot traffic to his home, and ride it to #3 in the US, the UK, and Canada. That's before we get to it being a pop song featuring both a trombone solo and a military snare drum rhythm section. When you're that good, you're that good.
Best cut from the soundtrack of 1984's Streets Of Fire, a way-ahead-of-its-time neo-noir rock and roll fairytale directed by Walter Hill (voted #1 in best use of busses crashing in motion picture history), ably lip-synced in this video by the movie's faux do-wop group the Sorels. You can see the song by actual artist Dan Hartman here. The movie sadly flopped, but this track from the penultimate scene in the movie rode all the way to #6 on the Billboard charts.
