October has been chock full of shows for which I can supply charts; another one of these types of posts will appear soon.
This is a show I didn’t hear back in 81, as evidenced by the lack of LDDs (for the record, they were “Watching the Wheels” and “Just the Way You Are”) and 60s Archive songs (“Mrs. Robinson,” “This Guy’s in Love with You,” and “Grazing in the Grass”). This countdown did become one of my iPod playlists a decade ago, though. I wonder how long it took me to realize I’d reversed the Little River Band and Moody Blues songs when writing this up…
Speaking of those two acts:
People like to give 81’s music lots of grief these days, but that’s an awfully strong Top 10 in my book–the only one I’m cooler on now is the Chris Cross track. This was the second and last week “The Voice” was at the top; “The Night Owls” was about to take over for five weeks. Foreigner and Benatar are the former #1s here, while Cross and Hall/Oates would eventually reach the summit. Note that BÖC is already at #10, despite being in its first week on AT40 (I wasn’t kidding back in August that it was on my radar–it debuted for me on 8/22). It’d reach #4 for 4 weeks. I clearly also kept the Tubes hanging around in my head much longer than the average bear.
The 78 show was the second four-hour countdown, so there was lots of padding with extras.
A big contrast between trying to be neat with the songs on the countdown and just cramming all in the extras in one row on the bottom! A few notes from listening eleven days ago:
–Interesting story that I’d long forgotten related to the Scaggs extra: RSO had approached Columbia about putting “Low Down” on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. They turned down the offer to put it on the one for…Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
–Funny tale about the recently deceased Keith Moon, suddenly remembering (while in Paris) a concert that night in London. He charters a 707 (!) for one passenger, only to realize upon his arrival that the show had been cancelled weeks earlier.
–For some reason I didn’t include the LDD from the second hour, which was “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” This was the very early days of Dedications, when the letters submitted often focused on lost chances/past loves. This was one of the former: a girl had moved away without forwarding information, leaving the Abba single behind for the boy as a reminder. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was a pretty sweet story.
–On the other hand, the fourth hour LDD was from a woman thinking of a former flame. She requested their song, “Afternoon Delight,” for the old times. Yikes–I didn’t need to know that. I must have not listened to the final hour, as I didn’t write the other extra (“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”) down, either.
–This was the last week that Aerosmith would be on a countdown until “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” showed up on 11/14/87.
The Music of My Life 