Rant #2,150: Tighten Up With Mrs. Robinson On a Beautiful Morning

Happy the Thursday-before-Memorial-Day-Weekend.

Yes, I have officially named today, because I cannot wait for this weekend to come already.

Any day that I don't have to go to my workplace is a good one, and I don't have to work on Monday, so what a day that will be, even if it rains and pours and is miserable outside.

And the Saturday and Sunday prior to the actual holiday ... gravy to me.

I'm off, will be busy on Saturday--we are going to my brother-in-law's house for a holiday weekend barbecue--and will take it easy on Sunday.

Baseball, barbecue and a break from routine ... that is what I am really looking forward to.

It reminds me when I was a kid, the coming of Memorial Day meant that summer was right around the bend.

And I don't remember specifically what my family and I did on the holiday 50 years ago, which took place on Thursday, May 30, 1968--but I know that we were off from school and probably preparing for a hot summer on the asphalt of New York City.

And that also meant that we had our transistor radios tuned into WABC and whatever other top 40 station that there was in New York City at the time.

At this point, so many of the top 40 stations had started to go by the wayside ... WABC is the only one that I can remember at this point that still played the music that we enjoyed, but perhaps WMCA was still playing Top 40 too, I simply don't remember.

But whatever the case, music was in the soon-to-be-summer air on May 30, and let's look at the top 10 singles in the country at that point in time, courtesy of Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart.

For the week of May 25, 1968, the No. 1 song in the country was "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell and the Drells, a song that lasted two weeks in the top spot. One of the great dance songs of the 1960s, if I remember correctly, Bell and perhaps other members of the group were in the military when this song hit it big, and it started a nice chart run for the act, which charted numerous singles through 1973.

The song was such a good one that it probably would have stayed in the top spot if not for Simon and Garfunkel's classic "Mrs. Robinson," featured in the top film "The Graduate," moving quickly up the charts, this week at No. 2. The song would reach the top spot the very next week, and stay there for three weeks.

The Rascals' "A Beautiful Morning" came in at No. 3, one of the great summer songs that didn't even make its chart run in the summer.

One of the all-time great movie themes, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" by Hugo Montenegro came in at No. 4, with one of the most wretched songs ever to make the Hot 100 chart, Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey," rounding out the top five songs on the chart.

Mellow soul came in at No. 6 with the Intruders' "Cowboys to Girls," and at No. 7 was the Irish Rovers with their perennial St. Patricks Day classic, "The Unicorn," a song that reached its heights well after that holiday.

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell had many hits on the Hot 100 both as single artists and together, and perhaps the best one of them all was at No. 8 this week, "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing."

Another Motown tune came in right behind Gaye and Terrell, with Stevie Wonder's "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day" coming in at No. 9, with Dionne Warwick's "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" rounding out the Memorial Day week's Top 10.

The week's highest chart debut, at No. 71, was "The Horse" by Cliff Nobles & Co. This song would eventually trot into the upper reaches of the chart at No. 2.

The biggest mover of the week--the single that jumped the most places on the chart from the previous week--was Aretha Franklin's "Think," which ran up the chart from No. 67 to No. 16. The song would eventually reach No. 7, and the single was so popular that many radio programmers also played the B side, "You Send Me," to the point that that side also charted, reaching No. 56.

So that is what we were collectively listening to on our transistor radios during this holiday period 50 years ago.

Lots of great music, lots of great memories, lots of great fun.

I have no idea what is playing in Top 40 now, but I do know that it cannot resonate with the general public like the Top 10 did way back when.

And listing those tunes has given me even a bigger need for the 2018 holiday to be upon us.

I cannot wait for this weekend to come already ... .