My Nine Favorite Songs From 1975 (Plus Nine I Hate to Admit I Liked)

If you know me, you know why I picked this year

Last month Pierce McIntyre threw down the gauntlet with the prompt: what were your 16 favorite songs when you were 16 years old? Unable to resist these monthly challenges from Plethora of Pop, I of course responded (you can find that article at the end of this piece). I was 16 in 1982, and it turned out to be a pretty good year for music. Ever since I wrote it, though, I’ve been thinking about my favorite songs from the year that matters most to me: 1975, the year I was nine.

If you’ve read even a few of my articles you already know that 1975 was pivotal for me (and the universe) for one reason: in August of that year Bruce Springsteen released Born to Run, the greatest album ever, which happened to also contain The Greatest Song Ever. But what else was I listening to during that Year of Years? Surely I had the radio on between January and August, so I scoured my memory and came up with my nine favorite songs from the year before I hit double digits.

“Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. Tramps like us. The Greatest Song Ever is by definition the best song from the year it was released. Duh.

“Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen. Like I was going to leave this one off. “Thunder Road” is Bruce’s second-best song, the second-best song ever, and thus has to be my second-favorite of ’75.

“Crazy on You” by Heart. This was where I learned you could fall in love because of a song. Unfortunately, Ann and Nancy Wilson were 16 and 12 years older than me, respectively. Regardless, I fell hopelessly in love with Ann at nine years old, beginning a lifelong attraction to brunettes. I also thought Nancy was a great guitarist but kind of nuts, and assumed this was true of all blondes and that they should be avoided. Because fate likes to laugh at me, my ex-wife was blonde…and nuts.

“Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin is a band you sometimes take for granted; like gravity or cheese enchiladas, they’ve just always been there. Listening to “Kashmir” reminds you of just how magnificent they were.

“Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac. Rumours gets all the attention, but this Stevie Nicks gem from their self-titled album two years earlier is as good or better than anything on Rumours.

“Rock and Roll All Nite” by KISS. The studio version from the 1975 album Dressed to Kill went nowhere on the charts, but the live version from the album Alive! (also released in 1975) hit #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It convinced me to join the KISS Army, a decision I have never regretted.

“Evil Woman” by Electric Light Orchestra. It’s hard to explain to anyone who wasn’t around in the 1970s what a major band ELO was for a stretch of about five years. My first real concert experience wasn’t Springsteen but ELO, during the 1978 Out of the Blue Tour.

“Sara Smile” by Hall & Oates. This is the slowest one on the list, but I couldn’t leave it off. It’s my favorite Hall & Oates song to this day and Pierce’s favorite inclusion on this list.

“Tush” by ZZ Top. Even as a kid I knew that Little Ol’ Band from Texas was something special. Little did I know as a kid that they would continue to rock out for another 46 years, until bassist Dusty Hill’s passing in 2021.

If you’re wondering why “Diamonds and Rust” by Joan Baez is not on this list when I just did an entire article on the album and called the song one of the all-time greats, the answer is simple. While it was indeed released in 1975, my silly, stupid self did not hear it for the first time until 1989.

And lest you mistakenly believe that I was the coolest nine-year-old on the planet, here are nine non-rockin’ songs from 1975 that I don’t usually admit I liked.

“Jive Talkin’” by the Bee Gees. Yes, they are the poster boys of the disco era, but if you say you weren’t listening to this song in 1975, you’re lying.

“Rhinestone Cowboy” by Glen Campbell. Before the 1990s it wasn’t common for a country song to be a huge crossover hit. This one was, reaching #1 on both the Billboard Country and Hot 100 charts. It’s still a great song today.

“That’s the Way I Like It” by KC and the Sunshine Band. What can I say? My musical tastes were still developing.

“S.O.S.” by ABBA. If there was a band harder to escape in 1975 than the Bee Gees, it was ABBA. In my defense, the songs were catchy.

“Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To)” by Diana Ross. Even at nine and as a committed rocker I knew that Diana Ross had the voice of an angel.

“Sky High” by Jigsaw. This song by the band most of you have never heard hit #3 in the US and #9 in the UK. And for those of you who do remember it, I just threw you into a nostalgic existential crisis. You’re welcome.

“Right Back Where We Started From” by Maxine Nightingale. Yeah, it’s kind of disco-y. Shut up.

“At Seventeen” by Janis Ian. I like to think that Janis Ian prepared the angsty ground from which my love for The Smiths would blossom ten years later.

“Saturday Night” by Bay City Rollers. “Born to Run” was not the only song released in August 1975, just the best one. And never again will I put the Bay City Rollers in the same sentence as Springsteen.

Now you have a little musical insight into me as a punk kid. I’m not going to use “nine at nine” as a prompt since, as I’ve said, that was a special year for me specifically. I will throw out this question: what are your favorite songs from the most pivotal year in your life? Let me know in the comments or tag me if you write an article of your own Pierce McIntyre, Alex Markham, Terry Barr, Chris Zappa, Simon Dillon, Eric Pierce, Sarah Paris, Mark Holburn, Danielle Loewen, Kevin Alexander, Jessie Waddell, Arpad Nagy, Judy Walker, Patrick Metzger.

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