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Sunday Morning Open Thread with Some Terrible Hit Songs from the '70s [1]

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Date: 2025-03-09

Good morning, crew.

Ah, yes. Hit songs of the 1970s. The Stones. Led Zep. They are among the artists we think of when we think of the Golden Age of rock music. But not all of the music recorded in that decade was that memorable. A whole lot of it was tooth-rottingly sweet. Does anyone here remember Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life?” That little confection spent a mind boggling ten weeks at #1 on the charts. And that’s not even the worst of them.

I’ll get to my picks of the worst after this:

Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum. Join us, please.

As an aside, can you guys all imagine how some people are so petrified of snakes that seeing a mere picture of one is enough to make them nearly pass out? Don’t tell anyone but I am like that with wasps, hornets and yellow jackets. I’ve been like that since second grade when a paper wasp stung me right under the eye. It’s not that I am allergic or anything like I am to honeybee stings. It didn’t even hurt much. It was the fact I had to watch the thing sting me from right up close that left me with this phobia. And now somebody had to post a close-up image of a murder hornet in Kos’s Image Library. I got a real good view of it as I was calling up the purple sun for this diary. Yech.

Our prolific contributor P Carey has become an esteemed MOT emeritus, so there are slots available for bloggers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If interested contact officebss or Ozarkblue via KOSmail. Blank-slate diaries will fill in those unused slots in the meantime.

This first song was originally written as an innocent ditty about a boy and his toy bell. Then Chuck Berry picked it up. With his wink wink delivery we get a different meaning. It’s hard to believe this one is by one of the fathers of rock and roll.

This next song is a bit saccharine for my tastes yet, trust me, it’s nothing compared to the sugar sweetness of many songs out of the ‘70s. Many of those of us who were still children when it came out wondered who Mom and Dad looked knowingly at each other when it played on the radio.

This song is the reason why yellow ribbons were ubiquitous during the ‘79 Iranian hostage situation. Little loops of colored ribbon represent everything now. Now you know why.

“Muskrat Love” was originally recorded by the band America. Band member Gerry Buckley once said after his live concerts he is thanked for not including this song as much as he gets requests for it.

If you watch just the first few seconds of this vid you’ll hear why every time Toni Tennille plays this one she thinks of Henry Kissinger.

Rick Dees was primarily a DJ. He said it took him one day to write this next song and three months to find anyone willing to record it. I wonder why.

1974 was the height of the streaking fad. This song was so popular it spent weeks at #1 on the charts.

Citizens’ Band radios were another huge fad, this one in 1975. Nearly everyone who spent time on the interstates had a CB. Since it happened in the ‘70s of course someone wrote a song about it. This one also reached #1.

So what’s on your mind this morning?

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