Top 100 Songs from 1972
Aug 29th, 2005 at 10:44 pm by Susie
Via Jo and Roxanne, I discovered this site listing the top 100 songs in any given year. These were the hits the year I graduated high school. The ones I still like are in bold; the ones I really, really like are bold and italicized, the ones that make me cringe are crossed out and I didn’t do anything at all to the ones I don’t remember:
1. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Roberta Flack
2. Alone Again (Naturally), Gilbert O’Sullivan
3. American Pie, Don McLean
4. Without You, Nilsson
5. Candy Man, Sammy Davis Jr.
6. I Gotcha, Joe Tex
7. Lean On Me, Bill Withers
8. Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me, Mac Davis
9. Brand New Key, Melanie
10. Daddy Dont You Walk So Fast, Wayne Newton
11. Let’s Stay Together, Al Green
12. Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl), Looking Glass
13. Oh Girl, Chi-Lites
14. Nice To Be With You, Gallery
15. My Ding-A-Ling, Chuck Berry
16. If Loving You Is Wrong I Don’t Want To Be Right, Luther Ingram
17. Heart Of Gold, Neil Young
18. Betcha By Golly, Wow, Stylistics
19. I’ll Take You There, Staple Singers
20. Ben, Michael Jackson
21. The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Robert John
22. Outa-space, Billy Preston
23. Slippin’ Into Darkness, War
24. Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress), Hollies
25. How Do You Do, Mouth and MacNeal
27. Song Sung Blue, Neil Diamond
28. A Horse With No Name, America
28. Popcorn, Hot Butter
29. Everybody Plays The Fool, Main Ingredient
30. Precious And Few, Climax
31. Last Night I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All, 5th Dimension
32. Nights In White Satin, Moody Blues
33. Go All The Way, Raspberries
34. Too Late To Turn Back Now, Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose
35. Back Stabbers, O’Jays
36. Down By The Lazy River, Osmonds
37. Sunshine, Jonathan Edwards
38. Starting All Over Again, Mel and Tim
39. Day After Day, Badfinger
40. Rocket Man, Elton John
41. Rockin’ Robin, Michael Jackson
42. Beautiful Sunday, Daniel Boone
43. Scorpio, Dennis Coffey and The Detroit Guitar Band
44. Morning Has Broken, Cat Stevens
45. The City Of New Orleans, Arlo Guthrie
46. Garden Party, Rick Nelson
47. I Can See Clearly Now, Johnny Nash
48. Burning Love, Elvis Presley
49. Clean Up Woman, Betty Wright
50. Hold Your Head Up, Argent
51. Jungle Fever, Chakachas
52. Everything I Own, Bread
53. In The Rain, Dramatics
54. Look What You Done For Me, Al Green
55. The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A., Donna Fargo
56. Bang A Gong (Get It On), T. Rex
57. Mother And Child Reunion, Paul Simon
58. Where Is The Love, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway
59. I’m Still In Love With You, Al Green
60. Layla, Derek and The Dominos
61. Day Dreaming, Aretha Franklin
62. The Way Of Love, Cher
63. Black And White, Three Dog Night
64. Sylvia’s Mother, Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show
65. Hurting Each Other, Carpenters
66. Coconut, Nilsson
68. Puppy Love, Donny Osmond
69. You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, Jim Croce
70. Hot Rod Lincoln, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
71. A Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done, Sonny and Cher
72. Joy, Apollo 100
73. Anticipation, Carly Simon
74. Never Been To Spain, Three Dog Night
75. Kiss An Angel Good Morning, Charlie Pride
76. School’s Out, Alice Cooper
77. Saturday In The Park, Chicago
78. Drowning In The Sea Of Love, Joe Simon
79. Use Me, Bill Withers
80. Family Affair, Sly and The Family Stone
81. Troglodyte, Jimmy Castor Bunch
82. The Witch Queen Of New Orleans, Redbone
83. Freddie’s Dead, Curtis Mayfield
84. Power Of Love, Joe Simon
85. Ain’t Understanding Mellow, Jerry Butler and Brenda Lee Eager
86. Taxi, Harry Chapin
87. Don’t Say You Don’t Remember, Beverly Bremers
87. Sealed With A Kiss, Bobby Vinton
88. I Saw The Light, Todd Rundgren
89. Motorcycle Mama, Sailcat
90. Day By Day, Godspell Soundtrack
91. Roundabout, Yes
92. Doctor My Eyes, Jackson Browne
93. I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing, New Seekers
94. Vincent / Castles In The Air, Don Mclean
95. Baby Let Me Take You (In My Arms), Detroit Emeralds
96. Speak To The Sky, Rick Springfield
97. I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing, Hillside Singers
98. Walking In The Rain With The One I Love, Love Unlimited
99. Good Foot, Pt. 1, James Brown
100. Pop That Thang, Isley Bros.
Those were the days—when songs had words and we understood them. I agree with your crossouts.
I see you didn’t do anything to Nilsson’s “Coconut.” You may want to go back and listen to it again. It’s a silly song–cunningly aimed at kids–but damn is it catchy.
And I’d have to say that Roberta Flack earned that #1 spot. It’s a totally haunting song.
And now, for 100 points and the game, who is Roberta Flack singing about, the guy who’s killing her (the songwriter) softly with his song?
Hint: He’s on this list…
Wow, I have SERIOUS concerns for the state of your remaining brain cells if you say you don’t remember songs like ‘Mother and Child Reunion’, ‘Go All The Way’, ‘Hold Your Head Up’ and a half-dozen others.
(And there’s a ‘Dont Say Your Don’t Remember’ pun in there somewhere. A wonderful song that I’m listening to as I type this. Cringe?!? No no no. Sigh. Music is sooo subjective, isn’t it?)
PS to JJ
I win 100 points (but I won’t spoil it).
(Boy, don’t get me started on oldies radio…)
There was something about the… ummm…Urban-ness of some of the songs that made me suspicious that this list is not a Billboard list. For example, my paperback copy of Joel Whitburn’s ‘Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits 1955 -1983′ doesn’t list James Brown’s ‘Good Foot’ as ever having made a weekly Top 40. (And there is no better authority on Billboard charts than Joel Whitburn.) So the idea that it made the yearly Top 100 is pretty unlikely.
Here’s a site that lists (or purports to anyway) Billboard Top 100s for ‘67 through ‘72. A very similar list as that quoted in the post, but different here and there.
http://patriot.net/~jhanley/mvhs72/top_hits/billbrd.htm
And no, Mr. Whiburn has still not made his lists available on-line.
(Me, obsessive about a post meant to be fun and silly? ME??)
JJ, that one’s easy. But I don’t want to spoil it, either.
I do remember some of the songs I didn’t do anything to, but I have no special feeling about them one way or another. So I left them alone.
Gilbert O’Sullivan I Love You!
I’ll spoil it. Roberta is singing about ol’JT himself - James Taylor. Terrific performance by her on this one. James Taylor is probably a better performer now than he was back in his heyday. He’s still got it goin’ on.
Not James Taylor. We’re channeling the thoughts of co-writer Lori Lieberman here…
And what’s this dis to Shel Silverstein, author of one of the great breakup parodies of all time, “Sylvia’s Mother?”
I’m going to guess that the Whitburn lists are copyrighted, and thus the people at Music Outfitters made up their own somehow.
For instance, was “Sealed with a Kiss” by Bobby Vinton really one of the top 100 songs of 1972? I doubt it, but there it is.
A list that puts “Good Foot” on the top hundred songs of 1972 is an okay list by me, as is a list that puts either McLean or Flack at number one.
P.S. You really don’t remember “Burning Love”?
One clarification and one spoiler:
1) It’s “Killing Me Softly …” (not on this list) rather than “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” that was inspired by a performance. “The First Time …” was written by Ewan MacColl, the brilliant father of the brilliant Kirsty MacColl.
2) “Killing Me Softly With His Song” was inspired by a performance by Don McLean.
Oh NO! What have you done!? I’ll have Mac Davies in my head all day!
I too would have graduated in’72, had I not been suitably entertained elsewhere. I can pretty much play all those in my head, and am not surprised at some of your bold italics.
Somebody’s got to do it. I just think it’s pathetic it has to be us. Jerry Garcia, ~69ish
Tom, I didn’t make you click on them. You can’t blame ME…
Mary is right. I got the wrong song as performed by Roberta Flack.
Ah, but who did Ewan MacColl write “The First Time…” about?
Re: “Burning Love.” I’d probably know it once I heard it, but the title doesn’t ring a bell.
Is there some requirement in this new blogger fad that one must say “graduated high school” instead of “graduated from high school?” All of the blogs that I’ve seen which have gone through this exercise have used the former phrase rather than the latter. I’ve always seen “graduated high school” as implicitly preceded by “just barely.”
What trivialists we mortals be!
Significant political items often get no response here, but pop culture ones usually draw a crowd. Here, it’s 18 replies and counting — will it reach 25? 30?
Susie, do you know what the record number of repies to a SG item is? Could this one be it?
i remember all these songs….and i agree with most of yours….but am i crazy or wasnt carole king’s tapestry released in 1972? there were a lot of hits off that that i dont see here. maybe i’m off by a year.
more fuel for discussion: what about the entire album “dark side of the moon”
- Suffergette City, David Bowie
- Walk on the Wild Side, Lou Reed
- Smoke on the Water and Space Truckin’, Deep Purple
- Superstition, Stevie Wonder
And don’t forget George Clinton and the boys in Parliment/Funkadelic, Ohio Players (fire), etc
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Any year that shows Roundabout and Doctor My Eyes at numbers 91 and 82 can only be classed as a good year for music. No wonder I never moved on musically.
superstition is a GREAT song. have any of you ever heard Bloomfield Kooper & Stills version of that ? i think it was on a “live at budokhan” LP…hard to find, but excellent !
Emptychair - Carole King’s Tapestry, and all hits contained therein, were from 1971. Her 1972 hits were ‘Sweet Seasons’ and the wonderful ‘Been to Canaan’.
Paul - Smoke on the Water was ‘73; Superstition entered the Top 40 in Dec. of ‘72, so was more of a ‘73 song (#1 at the end of Jan ‘73); the others were either more ‘FM’ hits and/or ‘73 and beyond as well.
Susie - “I got a hunk a hunk a Burnin’ Love”?
Hmm, you learn something new every day. I’d heard several times, way back when, that Killing Me Softly was written about James Taylor … and so I assumed that was correct. “When you ass-u-me, you …”. Conflated the two Roberta Flack songs, too, (as did the original poser of the question …)
Boy, I’m usually really good at this stuff, too. No, really, I am … I … I … oy.