Favorite Songs of 1975

1975, a year full of great songs, began for me with a flashback from the past. For some reason, local Miami radio began playing David Bowie's old hit Changes regularly at the beginning of the year. As a result, I'll always associate that great tune with 1975. Donny and Marie Osmond had one of their rare songs I liked with a collaboration, Morning Side of the Mountain. One of the Doobie Brothers' best-ever, Black Water, also came out at 75's start, as did Linda Ronstadt's forceful, angry You're No Good and Minnie Ripperton's sweet, intimate Loving You. As the year went on, other songs came to the fore. Michael Murphey's painful story of a girl and her horse, Wildfire, received a lot of radio play. War became more mainstream with two big single hits: Low Rider and Why Can't We Be Friends. C.W. McCall had a big country/CB radio/trucker hit with his hilarious Convoy. Alice Cooper had a rare subdued, emotional piece in Only Women. The group America's inspiring Lonely People was my all-time favorite of theirs. The Hustle, by Van McCoy, was the best disco song of the year as well as a regular fixture on CBS NFL Football that fall. K.C. and the Sunshine Band had another good dance tune with their Get Down Tonight. John Denver sang the pretty, romantic Fly Away as a duet with Olivia Newton-John. Olivia earlier in the year had a very pleasant singles hit with Have You Never Been Mellow. Love Rollercoaster, by the Ohio Players, was one of my favorite "soul" songs of '75. The German group Silver Convention had another good disco song: the very repetitive Fly Robin Fly. The Scottish group Pilot sounded an awful lot like the Beatles with their Magic. Bob Dylan raged against social injustice in his classic Hurricane, a song about a boxer whom he felt had wrongly been convicted of murder (and who was ultimately exonerated). My #3 song of 1975 was by the Spinners: their philosophical They Just Can't Stop It (Games People Play). The British group Queen had their first stateside hit (and my #2 song of the year) with their wild Killer Queen. And Elton John continued his march to greater and greater superstardom. His Philadelphia Freedom, a tribute to his friend Billie Jean King and her tennis team, was a pleasant, upbeat tune. But my top favorite song of 1975 was Elton's exciting two-part epic Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding, still my all-time favorite piece of his.