My freshman picture, from the fall of 1974, is one of the more ridiculous photos ever taken of me. My head is Charlie-Brown round, my hair hangs well below my ears, and on my face is a slit-eyed grin that makes me look half-stoned, which I wasn’t. My sophomore picture, taken in the fall of 1975, shows me all bright-eyed and eager, looking not like a stoner but like the class president, which I was. My junior picture, taken in the fall of 1976, is one of my favorite photos of me. Unlike other school-picture days, I hadn’t planned what I was going to wear that day, so I’m wearing a cardigan casually tossed over a collared shirt. I’ve still got a ridiculous amount of hair. But it’s the expression on my face that makes the photo. It’s a self-satisfied look, as if I were smiling at a private joke. That person is still a kid, but for the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel like one. He wears the look of someone who knows exactly who he is and exactly where he’s going. Which I did.
At this blog, sooner or later, we always find our way back to 1976.
The way I remember that year is almost certainly not the way it really was. I am pretty sure, however, that the world-by-the-tail expression in that picture was evidence of a real feeling. Unlike many people I knew, who were searching for themselves in the fashion of all adolescents in all times and not merely in the 70s sense, I was sure I’d found me. I wasn’t satisfied with every last thing about myself, but I was willing to ride on into my future being precisely who I was. You can do that when you’re 16, although years later, you may end up feeling a little foolish, maybe even regretful, about how you were.
One of the reasons I keep returning to 1976 is that even though that kid in the cardigan turned out to be wrong about himself in so many ways, I like him, with his dumb, smug face. Very often in the years since, I could have used a nip of his confidence. Another reason I keep returning to 1976 is that I like the way it sounded. Here’s how it sounded on KEZY in Anaheim, California, on the survey dated July 27, 1976:
1. “Afternoon Delight”/Starland Vocal Band. (holding at 1) Everybody loves a nooner, or the idea of one, especially a 16-year-old Top 40 geek with no chance of having one.
11. “If You Know What I Mean”/Neil Diamond. (up from 12) To the amateur philosopher I was that summer, this song sounded as though it must be full of meaning. It isn’t, but drenched in echo and delivered by Diamond in a voice roughened by whiskey and smokes, it sure sounds like it should be.
17. “I’m Easy”/Keith Carradine. (up from 21) “Take my hand and pull me down/I won’t put up any fight.” I wouldn’t have put up a fight either that summer. Too bad I never got to ride into battle.
26. “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker”/Parliament. (up from 27) The oddest hit single of the summer, and possibly the deepest deep-funk record ever to make the top 20.
Hitbound: “Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang”/Silver. Where I live, the trilling of the tree frog is a sound that signals autumn is on the way. We started hearing it this week, just as we started hearing this song in late July of 1976. By September, it would be all over the radio, and would never really leave my head as a reminder of 1976.
I’m sure it won’t be long before we’re back to 1976. It never is.
“I’m Easy”/Keith Carradine (this is from the Nashville movie soundtrack; the version on the Keith Carradine album I’m Easy is different; buy the Nashville soundtrack here)
Filed under: Record Charts, Tracks
The thing I remember most about the summer of ‘76 was being on the varsity baseball team and “The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy constantly playing on the radio in the locker room. THAT made the music of the summer of ‘76 SO memorable.
Glad you mentioned that Neil Diamond track. Probably my favorite tune of his. The best thing about 1976 for me was the birth of my daughter. My second child and still a constant reminder of how good life can be.