Waxing Nostalgic

Sitting in my doctor's waiting room earlier this week, I overheard some people waxing nostalgic over the 1970s. I was baffled by this. I was a teenager during that era, and I remember gas rationing, the energy crisis, clunky platform shoes, and disco. None of this makes me think, "Ah, those were good times." Even though there was a series named "Good Times". It was not dy-no-mite!

Maybe it's me. Not long ago some friends were waxing nostalgic for the 1950s, an era that none of us were around for. They described it as a time when people had respect for one another. Now, my friends were born in the aforementioned '70s, so since I was born in 1961, I at least came a little closer to the time in question. I couldn't let them get away with what I saw as a gross misrepresentation of the truth. So, I brought up Jim Crow laws; the lack of women's rights; how my grandfather, a rather wealthy man, thought that his daughter, my mother, had married beneath her, since my father's family was relatively poor. None of this put a dent in their belief that the 1950s were a golden time to be missed.

Nostalgia is defined by Mirriam-Webster as: 1. the state of being homesick. (I don't think that quite applies.) 2. a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. (Yup, that sounds like the one we want.) Excessively sentimental yearning for a past period: the good old days. 
Now, I will admit that some of the music from the '50s was better than a lot that came out of the '70s. In fact, there was a lot of '50s music and fads that came back in the '70s. "Happy Days" had a lot to answer for.


Of course, we also need to keep in mind that when we look at any decade, like the '70s, what we think of as typical of the decade, didn't start until the middle years, say 1974. Those earlier years were more like what we think of as the '60s. And the '60s didn't really start until somewhere about 1964. So when we talk about a decade like this, we are actually talking about a span from the middle of one decade until the middle of the next. Have I lost you yet?

Anyway, I got to thinking about what we think of as music of the '70s. I've arbitrarily chosen 1974 as my year to start the '70s. Why? That was the year that saw us pull out of Vietnam. It was also the year that gave us the oil crisis. Bonanza and Lassie went off the air in 1973. LIttle House on the Prairie and Happy Days both started in 1974. That sounds to me like the end of one era and the beginning of another. 

What was happening in the music world in 1974? Well, KISS released their first album, although it wasn't until 1975's Rock and Roll All Night that they really made a hit. This is KISS live from 1977. 

I just found out that KISS's second appearance was on The Mike Douglas show, a mid-day talk show, mostly watched by housewives and children home sick from school. That must have been odd, to say the least. Of course, Mike Douglas also had John Lennon and Yoko Ono as guest hosts for a week.

 I didn't understand the KISS fascination at the time. I thought that they weren't really that good, and that the only reason they were selling records was the whole makeup thing. But, I was not above using this song when my kids were potty training. You know, I wanna rock and roll all night, and potty everyday. Hey, it was a big hit in the 2 year old crowd. And yes, we had potty training songs. We had songs for everything. But that's another blog.

What else happened in '74? Sonny and Cher got divorced. The Ramones played their first concert. As did Van Halen. Queen got their first North American gig, opening for Mott the Hoople. ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest starting their rise to fame and stardom. Mama Cass Elliot died. John Lennon performed live with Elton John in Madison Square Garden; it was Lennon's last stage performance. And at the every end of that year, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mack.

Oh, yeah, one other thing started in 1974. Rock the Boat by The Hues Corporation, Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas and Gloria Gaynor's remake of Never Can Say Goodbye marked the beginnings of the disco music craze. Disco, yuck. 

Although there were some good songs out of the '70s. I'm actually a big fan of ABBA. The Eagles were starting out, Elton John was big, we had John Denver, Paul McCartney and Wings, Cher's solo work, The Carpenters, Billy Joel. I owned every album that Barry Manilow made. 

Rats. Now I'm feeling all nostalgic.