I Nearly Died From Hospitality

The Climax Blues Band. 1976. You know, that still strikes me as a hep, peppy little tune.

It’s conspicuous for its lonesomeness. I recall 1976 as a vast, desolate wasteland. Every aspect of life, too, not just the dratted radio. But the radio was especially bad. You can easily cobble together really good entertainment for yourself now, but back then you had to take what came out of the transistors or tubes, good and hard, and like it. LPs were expensive and you couldn’t transfer them to anything you could carry around much yet.

Think I’m exaggerating about music in 1976? Here’s a list of all the Number One hits of the year, from Billboard:

• Afternoon Delight – Starland Vocal Band
• Blinded by the Light – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
• Boogie Fever – The Sylvers
• Car Wash – Rose Royce
• December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) – The 4 Seasons
• Disco Duck (Part 1) – Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots
• Disco Lady – Johnnie Taylor
• Don’t Go Breaking My Heart – Elton John & Kiki Dee
• A Fifth of Beethoven – Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band
• Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (Part 1) – Tavares
• Hurricane (Part 1) – Bob Dylan
• I Wish – Stevie Wonder
• I Write the Songs – Barry Manilow
• If You Leave Me Now – Chicago
• Kiss and Say Goodbye – The Manhattans
• Let Your Love Flow – Bellamy Brothers
• Love Hangover – Diana Ross
• Play That Funky Music – Wild Cherry
• Rock’n Me – Steve Miller Band
• Saturday Night – Bay City Rollers
• (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty – KC & The Sunshine Band
• Silly Love Songs – Paul McCartney & Wings
• Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright) – Rod Stewart
• Torn Between Two Lovers – Mary MacGregor
• Welcome Back – John Sebastian
• You Don’t Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show) – Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr.
• You Make Me Feel Like Dancing – Leo Sayer
• You Should Be Dancing – Bee Gees

Yeesh. Loading those songs in that order into your iPod is more likely to end all life on Earth than turning on that supercollider they built in France. At the very least, the listener will end their own life. DIY mercy killing, if you ask me. The Stevie Wonder record — Songs In The Key Of Life — was pretty good. The Wild Cherry song was a kind of dumb fun. You can go to any wedding and you’ll hear it, if you get a hankerin’ for it. The rest was …

Sorry, had to run to the bathroom. I was going to go through the list one by one and append mordant remarks about each one of these turds in turn, but that would be dull. For me, I mean. Let’s make it a puzzle! Match up the following trenchant observations with the appropriate songs and win a prize!

• Execrable
• Me? You make me feel like Manson, you execrable midget
• Execrable
• Don’t go killing my dog with that execrable song
• Execrable
• Yes, you write the execrable songs, you bastard, one after another
• Not all that bad. Not all that good, either
• Execrable
• Heaven must be missing a mongrel, more likely. An execrable mongrel
• Execrable
• Tonite I’m going to rock you tonite. Execrably
• Execrable
• Like the other execrable Wings songs were serious.
• Torn between two horses, sounds more like. Two execrable horses
• Execrable
• If you leave me now? I smashed the radio. Now you want me to leave, too? Execrable.
• Execrable
• Stop singing like that. It’s execrable
• Execrable
• Stop singing like that. It’s execrable
• Execrable
• You should be horsewhipped until you sing in a normal, less execrable register
• That execrable guy was manifestly guilty
• Execrable
• I wish I was deafened by the execrable light.
• Execrable
• Execrable
• Where does this execrable singer live? I want to know. No reason