The first song memory was The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
My family loved music and growing up in Guttenberg, I saved up enough to walk down to the pharmacy to buy that record. The drug store was on the corner of River Park Drive and Goethe where the dentist office is today.
The records were stacked in the front of the store. It was probably 35 cents and I can still remember my excitement going home with that record and playing it over and over again.
I had a passion for Rod Stewart all through the 70s until this very day. I remember babysitting for Tara Sass and after a junior high breakup, listening to First Cut is the Deepest over and over.
Rod has been a huge presence in my life and I love where his music takes me. This summer Forever Young was played for my mother-son dance at Docker’s wedding. He had a live band and there was lots of discussion about whether they could play it, but they did. Rod just continues to take me where I need to go.
I have always been obsessed with music from all genres. There are just so many memories they all fall together.
S A T U R D A Ycomes to mind first. That was Bay City Rollers.
We listened to music of all kinds at home all through the 70s and that included Elvis and Patsy Cline, even old time country.
I have to be honest at how important listening to The Everly Brothers and Leslie Gore was a child. I would sit next to my mom’s record player (the kind that folded up) with my ear against the speaker and listen to Crying in the Rain, Wake up Little Susie, It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To, Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows for hours. Those songs still take me back to that room right off our kitchen, mom baking cookies and my siblings playing in the living room.
Probably, as time went on, Jimmy Buffet has been the major favorite. He was just a philosopher at heart. I saw him in concert five times. The first was at Alpine Valley with my cousins. Even the album that came out after his death is incredible.
Several years ago as I began to think about turning 70, something about it sounded familiar and comforting. I grew up in the 70s and loved that crazy turbulent decade. In my heart, wouldn’t I always be a 70s girl?
I could go back and revisit that time with the sound of Marshall Tucker, Heard it in a Love Song. I was running up the front steps with my girlfriends to the Fred Tap, a bar in my hometown. There was a band that night, the place was packed and the old wood floor was rocking. I loved that song. The flute at the beginning, then “If I ever settle down, you’d be my kind.” The songwriter was a male, but that lyric was the soundtrack to my own dating life. Because the 70s invited women to reject settling down and that song celebrated being free.
During college, music defined our happiest times. A group of my St. Olaf friends drove to see Elton at the St. Paul Civic Center on Halloween night in 1974. Someone knew the way. It was the era of his big glasses and jumping up on the piano. Kiki Dee played with him. The concert began with a fog-filled stage and Funeral for a Friend, but Crocodile Rock was my favorite.
A friend gave me Springsteen’s Born to Run album for my birthday and I can still remember taking the cellophane off and playing it.
There are literally hundreds of tunes that take me back. Maybe we all had tender goodbyes to the sound of Todd Rundgren’s Hello It’s Me. Fleetwood Mac and Van Morrison songs are within me forever.
As decades have passed and I realize how precious those times were, I decided to ask my good friends about their song memories. This collection is a place we can all return to as time goes by and we just feel like going back.
It was about sixth grade and I was riding the band bus from Quasqueton to Winthrop for practice. We were singing Sugar Sugar by the Archies. The bus driver was playing it on the radio. I played the flute.
Then it was The Carpenters, Close to You. I was lying on the dining room floor eating chocolate bonbons, you know, those chocolate drops with the soft white center. The stereo was a cabinet model in our dining room. We played that 45 over and over again.
Chicago, If you Leave Me Now, takes me back to a break-up after high school. Then I left for Clark College. Disco was the thing in the mid-70s and we would dance to Rubberband Man and Disco Duck. There was a disco place out on Pennsylvania called Alakazazz. We would buy one drink, try to make it last but then to go to the bathroom and fill up our cup with water as we danced the night away.
Then I came to Garnavillo and met Mick. He played base in a country band three nights a week. It was a three-piece group and they played at The Circle in Prairie du Chien.
We were singing Rockin Robin on the bus. It was girls and boys basketball teams. Probably sitting next to Linda Staebler Evers .
Always loved the Beatles but don’t remember any specific time listening to them.
Our Proms were Pieces of April and Stairway to Heaven, I remember slow dancing to Stairway, that was a favorite and still a favorite!!! Probably a favorite because it brings back some good memories!!
We went to Lakeside and the music could be country or rock. I don’t remember any special song, darn it, I’m sure there were many!!!
I went to a small school, Anita High School. I graduated in 1971, so I probably liked different groups than you.
I listened to Simon & Garfunkel, the Beatles, CCR, Herman Hermits, a little Elvis Presley and Three Dog Night. I had a small record player in my room, that I would spend a lot of time listening to. Music was a place I could escape my younger siblings! I loved the dances every Saturday night in a neighboring town, and roller skating with friends.
I was so excited about the bell bottom jeans and platform shoes! Since I was short, it made me feel less like a girl and more like a young women. I hated to wear nylon hose, because this was before panty hose. I had to wear a girdle or a garter belt. Both were very uncomfortable, but my mother insisted I wear those with a dress or skirt.
I grew up on a farm, so I always had chores. My parents didn’t believe in allowances, because they almost always gave me what I wanted. But I really wanted my own money, so I did a lot of babysitting with neighbor kids and walked beans for our neighbors. It was a good way to get a tan and make money. I liked that because if I wanted to buy something, I didn’t have to ask my parents for money!
I went to UNI after graduation for 3 years. I decided I wanted to get married and have a family. Looking back, I should have finished my college education.
I listened to The Carpenters and saw them in concert at ISU. I had a friend who went there.
The early Chicago tunes, with the heavy instrumentals, take me back, like 25 or 6 to 4.
Our record player was in the dining room, it was the kind with the lid that lifted up. In addition to the Carpenters, on our record player, I listened a lot to songs by the group, Bread, as well as Broadway show tunes, such as Jesus Christ Superstar.
We had a lot of music at our wedding. Longer by Dan Fogelberg, Endless Love by Lionel Richie and Sometimes, by the Carpenters were all sung.
And, of course, we had Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof. Didn’t almost everyone who got married in the late 70’s-early 80’s?
I had an epic friendship with Michele and Sherry. We listened to Shawn Cassidy and sang along to Da Doo Ran Ran on a 45 in Sherry’s bedroom.
We grew up besties in Colesburg. Michele’s Mom and Dad took us to see Grease. We loved all those songs too, You’re the One that IWant, I don’t think her parent really understood those lyrics. They were a little racy for our time.
70s Tunes Take Us Back 