The top charting hits of 1973. Note how many of them weren't No. 1s (Shambala was No. 31 for the year). Again, proving the No. 1 spot doesn't necessarily equate to top popularity. Top 100 Songs (1955-2016) 1 Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree Tony Orlando and Dawn 2 Bad, Bad Leroy Brown Jim Croce 3 Killing Me Softly with His Song Roberta Flack 4 Let’s Get It On Marvin Gaye 5 My Love Paul McCartney & Wings 6 Why Me Kris Kristofferson 7 Crocodile Rock Elton John 8 Will It Go Round in Circles Billy Preston 9 You’re So Vain Carly Simon 10 Touch Me in the Morning Diana Ross 11 The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia Vicki Lawrence 12 Playground in My Mind Clint Holmes 13 Brother Louie Stories 14 Delta Dawn Helen Reddy 15 Me and Mrs. Jones Billy Paul 16 Frankenstein The Edgar Winter Group 17 Drift Away Dobie Gray 18 Little Willy Sweet 19 You Are the Sunshine of My Life Stevie Wonder 20 Half-Breed Cher 21 That Lady The Isley Brothers 22 Pillow Talk Sylvia 23 We’re an American Band Grand Funk Railroad 24 Right Place Wrong Time Dr. John 25 Wildflower Skylark 26 Superstition Stevie Wonder 27 Loves Me Like a Rock Paul Simon 28 The Morning After Maureen McGovern 29 Rocky Mountain High John Denver 30 Stuck in the Middle with You Stealers Wheel 31 Shambala Three Dog Night 32 Love Train The O’Jays 33 I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby Barry White 34 Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose Tony Orlando and Dawn 35 Keep on Truckin’ Eddie Kendricks 36 Danny’s Song Anne Murray 37 Dancing in the Moonlight King Harvest 38 Monster Mash Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers 39 Natural High Bloodstone 40 Diamond Girl Seals and Crofts 41 Long Train Runnin’ The Doobie Brothers 42 Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth) George Harrison 43 If You Want Me to Stay Sly & the Family Stone 44 Daddy’s Home Jermaine Jackson 45 Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye) Gladys Knight & the Pips 46 I’m Doin’ Fine Now New York City 47 Could It Be I’m Falling in Love The Spinners 48 Daniel Elton John 49 Midnight Train to Georgia Gladys Knight & the Pips 50 Smoke on the Water Deep Purple 51 The Cover of the Rolling Stone Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show 52 Behind Closed Doors Charlie Rich 53 Your Mama Don’t Dance Loggins and Messina 54 Feelin’ Stronger Every Day Chicago 55 The Cisco Kid War 56 Live and Let Die Paul McCartney & Wings 57 Oh, Babe, What Would You Say? Hurricane Smith 58 I Believe in You (You Believe in Me) Johnnie Taylor 59 Sing The Carpenters 60 Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got) The Four Tops 61 Dueling Banjos Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell 62 Higher Ground Stevie Wonder 63 Here I Am (Come and Take Me) Al Green 64 My Maria B.W. Stevenson 65 Superfly Curtis Mayfield 66 Last Song Edward Bear 67 Get Down Gilbert O’Sullivan 68 Reelin’ in the Years Steely Dan 69 Hocus Pocus Focus 70 Yesterday Once More The Carpenters 71 Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Bette Midler 72 Clair Gilbert O’Sullivan 73 Do It Again Steely Dan 74 Kodachrome Paul Simon 75 Why Can’t We Live Together Timmy Thomas 76 Do You Wanna Dance? Bette Midler 77 So Very Hard to Go Tower of Power 78 Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu Johnny Rivers 79 Ramblin’ Man The Allman Brothers Band 80 Masterpiece The Temptations 81 Peaceful Helen Reddy 82 One of a Kind (Love Affair) The Spinners 83 Funny Face Donna Fargo 84 Funky Worm Ohio Players 85 Angie The Rolling Stones 86 Jambalaya (On the Bayou) Blue Ridge Rangers 87 Don’t Expect Me to Be Your Friend Lobo 88 Break Up to Make Up The Stylistics 89 Daisy a Day Jud Strunk 90 Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) Deodato 91 Stir It Up Johnny Nash 92 Money Pink Floyd 93 Gypsy Man War 94 The World Is a Ghetto War 95 Yes We Can Can The Pointer Sisters 96 Free Ride The Edgar Winter Group 97 Space Oddity David Bowie 98 It Never Rains in Southern California Albert Hammond 99 The Twelfth of Never Donny Osmond 100 Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone The Temptations
Has it been forgotten that Brian Wilson wrote "Surf City"? He caught flak (and probably more than that) from his father for not keeping that one for his own group.
Re: Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree I heard this a lot at the time, probably more than almost any other song. It's another one of those songs that today, I could take or leave. I see now that this hit #1 just after a lot of servicemen/servicewomen returned from Vietnam (Jan-Feb 1973), but I don't have any memories tying the song to that. Given that Vietnam veterans generally felt disrespected, perhaps there aren't any memories to be had. I was a little young at the time, didn't understand any of that until later, and as a result cannot say if there really wasn't any such connection, or if I just don't remember one. My strongest memory of this song actually is from a few years later. The "yellow ribbon around the tree" idea was also used for the return of the 50 US hostages from Iran in January 1981. So (since it isn't that obvious to me, as it seems to be to everyone else) is the song really about someone getting out of prison?
Not sure when date cutoff is (November??), but I see some late 1972 songs on there (for example, #98 and #100). I wonder if those two (and others) are hurt by virtue of having chart action split into two different years. [I remember from AT40 playbacks in 1980-1981 that there seemed to be a mid-November cutoff date] Without spilling the beans, I see a later 1973 #1s that is pretty far down that list (in the final quarter of it).
Yeah, I was thinking a couple of those at the bottom (It Never Rains, Papa Was A Rolling Stone) were pretty big songs....or maybe the actual sales numbers between upper and lower were not that huge.
Millions of plaid pant-suited women with console stereos can't be wrong! It's weird, this little pre-rock nostalgia boom that "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" helped ignite. By the end of the year Dawn would go all-in with their Ragtime Follies followed shortly by a Scott Joplin tune scaling the pop charts. Bette Midler, The Pointer Sisters and Manhattan Transfer all got in on the action and it eventually found a natural home with disco. I was in 3rd grade and soaking up AM radio like a sponge so our current chart topper is thoroughly embedded in my musical DNA. My more advanced brain tells me to resist, but the primitive part takes over and my toes start tapping. Ironically, of course.
Tie A Yellow Ribbon isn't that good, and it started a wave of horrid imitator old-timey toons, with the nadir being the execrable Eurovision-winning Save Your Kisses For Me by Brotherhood Of Man. Still, I have a soft spot for Dawn due to the early involvement by the great Toni Wine, and my fondness for their early lesser hit What Are You Doing Sunday. Also, the (assumed by everyone) prison bit of the lyrics places the record slightly in that twisted story song AM pop cycle that I am so fond of. Thumbs up overall.
It does sound like that, but the writer insists it isn't about an ex-con. Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree - Wikipedia
Whatever it's about ---- I don't ever remember hearing (writers, publishers, performers [or anyone's estates]) complaining about its use by the military-returning-home folks, even if that was not the original intent. It'd appear to me that they'd (financially, at least) welcome that connection --- at least publicly -- it means the song reappears once in a while.
Yes, it doesn't matter to me either. It does sound like a convict ("I've done my time") but that could also refer to military service, of course. The song doesn't bother me that much. I don't think I have this one and of course remember it being all over the radio and played years later. I first heard this when it came out. I was 11.
I remember seeing Tie a Yellow Ribbon when it first came out being sung on some daytime TV show, Mike Douglas? Merv Griffin? and seeing my mom sing along and knowing it was going to be huge. It just has that blend of nostalgia and catchiness that just screams "hit". That being said, it got old for me pretty fast.
Well. he wan't the lyricist and this verse says different.: Bus driver, please look for me 'Cause I couldn't bear to see what I might see I'm really still in prison and my love, she holds the key A simple yellow ribbon's what I need to set me free And I wrote and told her please
That could be taken metaphorically. I always thought he was coming from prison, it seemed more likely that he would be unsure of her that way. I guess it doesn't really matter though.
Superstition Still playing catch up! I consider Superstition the point when Little Stevie Wonder becomes Big Stevie Wonder. Stevie and Marvin Gaye are to me the two Motown stars who got demonstrably better in the 70s than they had been in the 60s. Which is quite something, considering they were already great from the start. Superstition is one of my favorite Stevie songs; I'd rank it up there with Living for the City and Master Blaster in my all time list. There is a lot to love about this track, but the stuff that stands out for me: The synthesizers. This instrument still was somewhat of a novelty at this point in music history. There were a few artists out there who were beginning to understand how best to use it, but Stevie really seems like one who brought out the funk and the power in the instrument in a way few is any others did. And this song is a prime example of that mastery. There would be more to come! The voice. He seems at times to be channeling Sly Stone here. Of course, Stevie always had a great voice, but he really seems to have come into his own here. To put it bluntly, he's ballsier than in the past. Mon Cherie Amour Stevie is great, but this is the type of song that really highlights what he can do. Not surprising that the Red Hot Chili Peppers have done this one in concert, but it's harder to imagine them doing, say, Signed Sealed Delivered (of course, also a great song, but not Superstition-level funky). The subject. Not too often do you hear a #1 song about something different; so many songs cover the same lyrical ground. It's actually surprising there haven't been more tunes decrying ignorance, a topic that seems like an untapped source for potentially great numbers. I'm thinking there's a little Bob Dylan rubbing off on Stevie perhaps, but Stevie is far more direct than the bard from Hibbing, and that works best for him. "When you believe in things you don't understand, you'll sufffffer". Although Stevie focuses on more traditional notions of what is superstitious (black cats and all), that phrase could really apply to almost any instance of belief (religious, political, what have you), adding a lot of depth and food for thought to the proceedings. I'm eagerly looking forward to talking more about this guy!
Killing me Softly With His Song Roberta strikes again with another great song. I actually like this song a bit better than the First Time Ever ya da ya da. I think that song is better and more of an epic track, but as far as day-to-day listening, I prefer Killing Me Softly. Her style is really unusual in a time when most women either went the brassy route (Mr. Big Stuff/I Know a Place/etc.) or more in the Helen Reddy direction. Boy, it works! One thing that occurs to me: is this the first time we've had a #1 that directly references murder in the title? OK, maybe it's more second degree manslaughter the singer is committing, but it's interesting that even the songs that are about death (everything from Battle of New Orleans to Ringo to a few upcoming ones) dance around the issue and don't mention the act in the title. By the way, this isn't the only song of that era about a popular male singer. Anyone remember Poetry Man by Phoebe Snow? It even has kind of the same vibe as Killing Me Softly. My mom had Snow's album with this song, so I heard it a lot as a kid. The song, by the way, is about Jackson Browne.
Wow. Maybe five songs I don't like...Ribbon isn't one of them. An amazing list...look at the diversity!
It's not my favorite song, but it isn't one of the ones I consider the worst. We've covered some of those "worst" songs already (and more are coming, particularly in 1974). I don't have any Tony Orlando (except for Bless You, from the 1960s). I'd likely change the station if Tie a Yellow Ribbon came on the radio.
I've done some research on the Billboard year-end Top 100 charts. Today, the "chart year" starts the first week of December of the prior year and ends the last week of November. But until the 1990s, there was no consistency on the chart cut-off date or how far back into the prior year it went. I've made notes on each year's chart from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, but I don't have them nearby right now. There also was no consistency in how the chart was compiled. Most of the time, an inverse point system was used, with extra weight given to weeks at #1 to prevent a song that didn't hit #1 from becoming the #1 hit of the year, as happened twice in the 1960s (1965 and 1966; the second time was so controversial that not even Billboard recognizes its original published version of the Top 100 of 1966, in the December 24, 1966 issue, any more). But sometimes, the system was more convoluted, and I still haven't figured out some of the late-1980s charts (I suspect a more advanced method than a weighted inverse point system was used). After Billboard started to use SoundScan and Broadcast Data Systems to compile the Hot 100, they used 52 weeks of the actual raw data, rather than cumulative chart positions, to compile the end-of-year chart.
Many No. 1 songs don't rate high on the year-end lists. I use to think that all the No. 1s would be int he top, followed by No. 2s, etc. However, from what I've read, many No. 1s didn't last long, or were on their a week, and weren't on the charts for long. That's why Kris Kristofferson's WHY ME, which "only" peaked at No. 22, was one of the Top 10 songs of the year. It was on the charts for a long time. I immediately think of The Eagles' Heartache Tonight, which went No. 1 in 79-80 but scored very low on the year-end charts. Some of the No. 2s- No. 3s were on the charts much longer.
Tie A Yellow Ribbon got old fast for me.... but I don't change the station when it comes on 70's on 7. I do like those early Dawn hits.....Knock Three Times, Candida, Summer Sand.
Those are goodies. Their songs are great, fun pop. Can't say I've ever heard Summer Sand. Will have to check it out.
This could have been posted back when we were discussing Knock Three Times and I'm not sure how I didn't notice it but it's notable for featuring Tony sans moustache. Amazing how a strip of upper lip hair can change a face so much!
