Rant #2,394: ABC, Let It Be

Well, we finally got to Friday.

And I finally got some sleep, although it wasn't easy.

I again went to sleep pretty early, woke up early, tossed and turned for an hour or more, but finally, I got back to sleep and woke up pretty much at my normal time of 6 a.m.

I blame it on my allergies, which with the cool, wet weather we have been having--it is raining as I speak--has brought out pollen big time, and it is really impacting me, in particular when I am sleeping, or trying to sleep.

With that being said, 50 years ago, I had the same allergies, but back then, the study of allergies like I have was in its infancy, and there really wasn't much I could do to at least lessen them. It would be a few years until I got regular allergy shots, which I still get today--I will get them tomorrow--so I just had to suffer, and suffer I did.

But I did not suffer listening to the radio at all, which was full of great music that has pretty much stood the test of time.

So today, the last Friday in April, let's look at the Billboard Hot 100 chart of April 25, 1970, and see what we were listening to back then.

In the No. 10 position on the chart was Tyrone Davis' biggest hit, "Turn Back the Hands of Time." The singer placed 15 singles on the chart from 1968 to 1982, but this one was his biggest hit.

Coming in at No. 9 was "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel. The former No. 1 song still resonates today, as we look for our own "bridge" to battle the horrid coronavirus.

The Friends of Distinction had one of their biggest singles with "Love Or Let Me Be Lonely," which was at No. 8 this week. The act was a spinoff of the Versatiles, the same act that spawned the 5th Dimension.

Paul McCartney was expanding his hold on the Hot 100 singles while still a Beatle, and he did it with "Come and Get It" by Badfinger, at No. 7 this week. He wrote this song, one of the first not credited to "Lennon-McCartney" but to just "McCartney."

Thought of as a "one-hit wonder," the Edison Lighthouse scored with "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes), which slotted at No. 6 this week. The lead singer on the recording, Tony Burrows, actually had many hits under his belt in the U.S. and in Europe during this period, including songs by First Class and Brotherhood of Man.

A double-sided hit came in at No. 5 this week. Canada's the Guess Who--an act which had been around since the mid-1960s--scored with "American Woman"/"No Sugar Tonight. This A and B side hit would eventually reach No. 1 on the charts in a few weeks' time.

Like Paul McCartney, John Lennon was expanding his reach at this point in time, and as John "Ono" Lennon, he came in at No. 4 with "Instant Karma." The song's full title, which is rarely used anymore, was "Instant Karma (We All Shone On)."

Another supposed one-hit wonder came in at No. 3, with Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit In the Sky" reaching its peak on the chart this week. Greenbaum registed other lower-echelon Hot 100 singles with other acts during the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Dr. West's Medicine Band and Junk Show.

Lennon and McCartney's "Let It Be" was at No. 2, and demonstrated that although each of them had one foot out the door of being a Beatle, their collaborations as a team still packed a mighty punch. This former No. 1 hit was also the title of an accompanying documentary of the same name, showing their, George Harrison and Ringo Starr's final days as a single unit.

And at No. 1, for the first week of a two-week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts, was--

"ABC" by the Jackson 5. The song pretty much encapsulated what this band was all about, brouight them worldwide stardom, and made Michael Jackson a teen idol, right up there with then-current heartthrobs David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman.

The top debut single of the week was another two-sided hit, "Around the Bend"/'Run Through the Jungle" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, which came onto the chart at No. 48 this week. The single would eventually reach No. 4 on the chart.

The biggest mover on the chart--the song the moved up the most places from last week to this week--was "Puppet Man" by the aforementioned 5th Dimension, which moved up 30 places, from No. 86 to No. 56, in the span of a single week. The song, written by Neil Sedaka, would later top out at No. 24.

So there you have it, the top 10 songs that we were listening to 50 years ago.

To me at least, most of these songs still hold up, and as we go through this tough period in our lives, some of them really and truly resonate today as they did way back when.

So "get your old records off the shelf," and listen to these songs once again. I am sure this experience will bring back lots of great memories.

Have a good weekend. I will speak to you again on Monday.