A Top Ten Memoir: 1973- "I bet you think this song is about you..."
I turned 10 in 1973 and was already a full-blown music (and TV) lover. I eagerly picked up my WCFL radio surveys every week at the Turn-Style and began to discover Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. There was nothing that could top Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain that year. It’s one of the first songs I remember being number one for several weeks in Chicago. I found the lyrics pretty hilarious even at my young age: “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” Could a song be about a song?! I loved it and like American Pie in ’72, the trick to really enjoying You’re So Vain was to be able to learn all the words to the many verses, and of course, the very catchy chorus. When it became the number one song of the year on our local radio stations, I felt I knew what a number one song truly was. There was no doubt this was the song of year. (I never cared who the song was about, by the way, although the more I learned about Carly Simon, the more I became convinced it was Warren Beatty.)
The album from which it came, No Secrets, also produced two other stand out tracks, The Right Thing to Do, and We Have No Secrets. My sister had the cassette but I bought the double-sided single anyway. As much as I grew to appreciate these songs more as I got older, there was something about both that I connected with even as a kid. It might have just been Carly Simon’s voice or the catchiness of the lyrics. Either way, they were right up there with You’re So Vain as two of my favorite songs of the year. It’s interesting to look back at The Right Thing to Do today and consider what it says about loving whomever we need to love. It could also be a theme for LGBTQ or any other “non-traditional” love in any era.
We Have No Secrets explores a budding relationship where everything is put out in the open: “We have no secrets. We tell each other everything about the lovers in our past and why they didn’t last. We share a cast of characters from A to Z. We know each other’s fantasies…” but “Sometimes I wish that I never knew some of those secrets of yours…” Was she singing this to James Taylor? I think we can all relate.
My Top Ten of 1973:
1. You’re So Vain – Carly Simon
2. Top of the World – Carpenters
3. We Have No Secrets – Carly Simon
4. Daniel – Elton John
5. The Right Thing to Do – Carly Simon
6. Get Down – Gilbert O’Sullivan
7. Half Breed – Cher
8. Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – Elton John
9. Feelin’ Stronger Every Day – Chicago
10. Yesterday Once More – Carpenters
Cher scored another number one hit with Half-Breed. The media (and, well, Sonny) would often refer to Cher’s Native American heritage (which interestingly hasn’t been much discussed in the decades since.) So, it seemed she had some credibility to sing a song like this. Her performance of it on the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour featured her decked out in feathers. The album cover, which I still think is one of the prettiest ever shot, featured Cher on a horse, riding through the desert (which I guess a “half-breed” would do…) What a thrill it was getting that one for Christmas!
The song was easy to sing with and featured Cher’s now trademark approach to adding syllables to words that don’t have extra syllables: “half-bre-ed,” “Cherokee-a.” It was all great fun to listen to and Cher looked beautiful singing it even if the words are a bit outdated today.
The Carpenters had multiple hits in ’73. Top of the World was an album cut from their previously released A Song for You album that became a number one single after it was included in their The Singles 1969-73 greatest hits collection. It’s one of the most positive songs ever recorded: “Such a feeling’s coming over me. There is wonder in most everything I see. Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes, and I won’t be surprised if it’s a dream. Everything I want the world to be, is now coming true especially for me, and the reason is clear it’s because you are here, you’re the nearest thing to heaven that I’ve seen. I’m on the top of the world…” So upbeat, so happy and a mention of great weather to brighten things up! Is it cheesy? Perhaps but then I know I’ve experienced feelings like this when I was on top of the world many times and have always thought that this song really captured those highs. I still put it on while riding my bike on cloudless days! It is one of my all-time favorite songs.
Yesterday Once More was a bit more somber as the duo sang about the great songs from the past and every “sha-la-la-la” and “wo-o-o-o.” The country was beginning to get nostalgic for the “innocent” era before Vietnam and all of the protests of the 1960s. The Carpenters never ventured into any significant social or political thought (unless you consider their cover of Krafterk’s Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft a few years later a bit of a commentary on post-Star War culture.) But Yesterday Once More and its focus on the past already began to feel relevant to me in ’73: “When I was young I listened to the radio, waiting for my favorite songs. When they played, I’d sing along, it made me smile. Those were such happy times and not so long ago, how I wondered where they’d gone, but they’re back again just like a long-lost friend, all the songs I loved so well…” Even at age 10 I was feeling nostalgic for the “old” records I had bought by this time. The song did feel more relevant though when I got a bit older.
Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Get Down was another sprightly fun pop song: “Get down, you’re a bad dog baby, but I still want you around!” I’d understood the concept of “bad dogs,” or at least what John thought was, when he disciplined our dog Toby. (I went over this in my 1972 post but it bears repeating.)
Basically, I just really liked the catchiness of the tune. When you’re 10, songs like this are very easy to like but I still really enjoy hearing it!
On the home front, my relationship with John hadn’t gotten any better. I continued to fear him and disliked the fact that he wanted me to do things I just didn’t want to do. Even at the age of 10 I had a sense of who I was. I didn’t PLAY CATCH! It wasn’t MY THING! Still, I guess he didn’t want me to be a “sissy” and I certainly didn’t know how to, or even want to, stand up for myself with him. This may be the saddest photo ever shot of me which says a lot about how I felt!
I was still glued to the TV pretty regularly. My favorite PBS show was Zoom wherein kids ran the show, sang songs, discussed hobbies, enacted plays, and made pretzels. I learned to do all of these things after I got a copy of the Zoom Catalog which featured many of the great segments from the show.
In the summer Jeff, Irene, Annie, and I put on a Zoom show in our backyard. All of the neighbors were invited as we re-enacted bits from the show and demonstrated Bernadette’s famous arm movement trick. (It baffled everyone.)
At the end of the year I was given a tape recorder for Christmas. I began putting neighbor friends in plays that we would record. All of it was in audio cassette format, so there were no costumes or sets, but we certainly made these plays our own. From ’73 through ’74 we recorded dozens of plays such as Rumpelstiltskin, something from Zoom we called The End of Eggbert, and our own original play featuring the Guinness Book of Records holders for tallest man in the world, shortest woman in the world, and heaviest man in the world. Jeff, Irene, and I played the various parts. It was great fun. Years later I spilled Coke on some of the tapes so Jeff and I remade it. It was too good not to be remade…
I often think of those days when I hear Elton John’s Daniel. It’s one of the few songs that can bring tears to my eyes. When he sings, “Oh I miss Daniel, Oh I miss him so much” I get a chill down my body and a wave of sadness overwhelms me. I think given that the song is about someone with the same name as me I sometimes feel a certain sense of nostalgia for the “Danny” or “Daniel” within me: “Do you still feel the pain and the scars that won’t heal?” Just writing this entire memoir has opened up many scars that even today still hurt. Perhaps that’s the power of this Elton John song. It’s so beautifully sung and produced that it’s melancholy feeling remains attached to me forever. It reminds me of the many wounds that still sting or haunt me.
Chicago’s Feeling Stronger Every Day may be the antithesis of this. The record was purchased by my brother Jeff (at the tender age of 7!) but it became one of my favorite Chicago songs over the years. Especially as a young adult, whenever I felt I was getting over some wound or scar, this song has inspired and given me the further strength to move on. It’s another brilliantly and exuberantly produced song which never fails to make me feel better.
Similarly, Elton John’s Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting is a hard rocking and rebellious tune that just became more relevant to me as time went on. My sister Judy had the album it was from, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and Jeff had the single. Elton John’s music was everywhere in our house and on the radio.
1973 was also the year that I began keeping my own regular music lists. I came up with the idea for a fictitious radio station WDNP. (The D was for Dan and the P for Pal but the N was a bit of a mystery choice. Why I didn’t choose J, the first letter of my middle name, instead of N is beyond me. Perhaps I thought it was too on the nose for a station to be called WDJP. I guess WDNP sounded better…?) Inspired by WCFL and WLS radio stations and playlists, in addition to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, I felt it was time for me to create my own weekly survey. I suppose it served no other purpose except to allow me to have songs reach whatever position I wanted them to reach. They weren’t listed by favorites but certainly if Cher had a song like Half Breed out, you can bet that song would skyrocket to number one faster than it did at WCFL or Billboard Magazine. It also gave me a hobby and something I could work on each week. It provided some comfort and stability while life at home was anything but that.
During trips to Wisconsin I began writing my own songs using a set of bongo drums I got for Christmas. The lyrics were ridiculous: “Hey, Hey, how do you feel today? Your mama said you were sick in bed, your papa said that you were dead!” Oh, and there were more but the lyrics didn’t get much better… Spending time with the world in my head gave me something to do on those trips up north though.
Then, our life turned upside down again: John was diagnosed with leukemia. Given that he was several years younger than my mother, this was yet another shock to her and to the family. John would go for regular trips to the hospital and would be gone for a few days at a time. I have to admit to really liking when he was away. I got to do what I wanted and have mom to myself. As the year reached its end, things weren’t looking great for John.
Links to my Top Ten of 1973:
Next Up…1974…”How to turn down the noise in my mind…”
I also love Daniel and have a similar reaction hearing it. So much sadness and grief in that song. Similarly, I love Stronger Every Day!! I love Chicago and was so excited to receive their albums at Chanukah or Christmas. Maybe I was destined to be a Top Tenner!! It also occurred to me as I read/listen to your posts/ songs that so many of these songs are about vulnerability and how to be honest feeling vulnerable or how to overcome vulnerability. Music offers an antidote whether through acknowledgement or inspiration. Your Top Ten is like a vulnerability journal 💖
I need to write a long-form post on how a young white male absolutely nailed his ears to Carly Simon. I loved her and not as a figure of feminine beauty but a strong songwriter. I got it right away. She sang it, and I thought, this is great! Also her subtlety: "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" is courageous and brilliant to this day. I got it at 12 years old. Don't fool yourself. Kids are smart. Carly is the best.