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Rock songs from the ’70s that have become ingrained in pop culture have come to be known as classic rock. Of course, back in the seventies we didn’t call it classic rock, but that’s what everybody calls it now. And look at me, I’ve actually devoted a whole website to the music we all call classic rock.
So many songs from the 1970s became so famous that just about anybody alive on this planet knows them. We’re talking songs like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and pretty much anything by Queen, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, or Elton John. Any of the big bands that delivered so much material during the decade of the pet rock will always be remembered for that music.
But there are other songs, songs that were widely known and huge hits on the radio, that haven’t stood the test of time. They’ve simply been forgotten. Usually they come from musical artists that people just don’t talk about anymore. You know the ones, those big hits that maybe played every day on AM radio during the summer, but have since been lost.
Only if you grew up in the ’70s and were a teenager just tuning into music will you really remember these songs. Some other people have heard them because they pop up once in a while, but these were songs that meant something to us. They were part of our daily lives, and we heard them all the time.
I’m not going to go too deep here. This article is aimed at the general public. I mean, I could easily pick the third song on the second Gentle Giant album, and of course there are millions of people who have never even heard of Gentle Giant. This is aimed at people who grew up in the seventies and heard these songs all the time; that’s what this list is all about. So here’s a list of ten that I will never forget, because they bring me back to a point in my life when I was just discovering what life was all about.
# 10 – “My Angel Baby” – Toby Beau
This one brings me right back to the summer of ’78. I had never heard of Toby Beau before, but this song instantly became part of that summer, the one between my junior and senior year of high school. It was recognizable the second it started, with that wonderful screaming guitar riff. Smooth, but perfect.
The other thing that got you was the chorus. Once you heard it, you could never forget it.
Toby Beau was a band out of the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. “My Angel Baby” was written by band members Danny McKenna and Balde Silva, and it climbed to number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 while going all the way to number one on the Easy Listening chart.
I was right that they never had a bigger one. The band did return to the Top 40 with “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye,” so “My Angel Baby” was not literally their only Top 40 appearance, but it was by far their signature hit. Balde Silva has continued to perform under the Toby Beau name, carrying that song with him decades after that summer of 1978.
# 9 – “Magnet and Steel” – Walter Egan
The one thing so many of these songs have in common is that they are recognizable from the very first beat. Walter Egan’s “Magnet and Steel” was a huge smash during that same summer of ’78. I promise I will get us out of this summer soon, but I figured it would be fun to open the list with two songs from that one magical stretch.
Egan was actually a New York kid, born in Forest Hills, Queens. “Magnet and Steel” was the biggest hit off his album Not Shy, and it reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100.
Stevie Nicks appears prominently on the backing vocals, while Lindsey Buckingham co-produced and played on the record. Egan has said that he wrote the song about Nicks, whom he had fallen for, so having her voice on the record gave the whole thing another layer.
And of course there was the back of the album cover, the blonde sitting next to Egan in a blue T-bird, with a look on her face like she just did not trust that guy. Egan never had another hit this big before or after, but for one summer he owned the radio.
# 8 – “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes’ Love It)” – Daddy Dewdrop
Okay, this one goes back a lot further, to the early ’70s. I was young at the time, maybe ten or eleven years old. I didn’t really know what the song was about, but I could see the whole thing playing out in front of me.
There were a lot of songs like this in the early ’70s, these goofy, cheeky novelty tunes that people seemed to really love. And it makes sense. It was the time of Vietnam, with the war and all the political unrest showing up on the television every single night. A silly song like this was an escape.
The man behind the Daddy Dewdrop name was Dick Monda. “Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes’ Love It)” was originally written for the Saturday morning cartoon Groovie Goolies, where Monda worked as music producer. He later re-recorded the song under the Daddy Dewdrop name. It shot up to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971, and it became the only Daddy Dewdrop recording to reach that chart.
Somehow this one just didn’t stand the test of time. I highly doubt anyone born in the ’90s or later has ever even heard it. But if you are my age, somewhere in your sixties or seventies, you remember this one.
# 7 – “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” – Chris Rea
You might have to stay in the summer of ’78 with me for just one more, because this one was just like Toby’s tune. It was on the radio constantly.
Chris Rea was an English singer and songwriter. “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” appeared on his debut album, Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?, and became his first major American hit. It reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Rea a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. The record was produced by Gus Dudgeon, a name that very serious Elton John fans are aware of because he produced many of Elton’s early albums.
Here in the States, this was really the only huge hit Chris ever had. In Britain and across Europe, however, he went on to become a major star for decades. Rea died in December 2025 at the age of 74.
# 6 – “Harmony” – Elton John
I remember one afternoon listening to 99X, that huge New York City radio station. They were running a contest called the Battle of the Hits, where they would play two songs back to back and let listeners call in and vote for their favorite. It went on for hours. And every single time, Elton John’s “Harmony” won.
I remember it seeming to win week after week. What is certain is that “Harmony” became one of those unusual album tracks that developed a life of its own on radio. Elton John’s official history notes that the song appeared on listener-voted weekly airplay charts at album-oriented rock stations in New York and other major cities even though it was never released as an A-side single.
It was the closing track on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and later appeared as the B-side of “Bennie and the Jets.” Everybody I knew was in love with this track.
Over the years it has mostly faded from the airwaves, and younger listeners who otherwise know Elton’s catalog well often don’t know this one at all. But if you were an Elton fan in the ’70s, “Harmony” was right near the top of the list.
# 5 – “Aspen / These Days” – Dan Fogelberg
Before Dan Fogelberg started rolling out the big hits most people now associate with him, songs like “Same Old Lang Syne” and “Leader of the Band,” he was quietly building a devoted following among fans who had fallen for his soulful folk albums, records full of life, love, and sorrow.
There was something special about him, in his voice and even in the way he looked in those album photos. All my friends in high school loved him, especially the girls.
This was one of those songs that was just magical. It opens with a piece called “Aspen,” a gorgeous instrumental, and it flows right into “These Days.” That introduction is astonishingly beautiful, and then the guitar comes in and just blows you away.
It was never released as a single. It didn’t have to be. “Aspen / These Days” was the opening track on Captured Angel, and we played that album every single day. Every coffee house I walked into back then, somebody would always be performing this song.
# 4 – “Please Come to Boston” – Dave Loggins
This was another one of those one-hit wonder songs that everyone fell in love with. You can hear the pain right there in Dave Loggins’ voice, all the desperation and longing he had for the woman to come join him. But every time he asks, she refuses, telling him no, you come home to me.
The melody, the performance, the production, it all just worked so perfectly on this one. It’s one you never forget.
“Please Come to Boston” was released in 1974 and climbed all the way to number five on the Billboard Hot 100 while also becoming a number one Easy Listening hit. It earned Loggins a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. He was a second cousin of Kenny Loggins, though the two took very different musical paths. Dave never had another pop hit anywhere near this big, but he built a fine career writing songs for other artists in Nashville. He died in 2024, and this one song will keep his name alive for a very long time.
# 3 – “Shame the Devil” – Robin Trower
This one is aimed at the rock fans more than anybody. If you were into rock in the 1970s, you knew Robin Trower. He was huge, a guitar god. I saw him play many times. He is still active, but you don’t hear his name in the same breath as a lot of the other guitar players from that era, and that’s a shame. No pun intended.
Trower came out of Procol Harum and went solo in the early ’70s. His breakthrough was the album Bridge of Sighs in 1974. “Shame the Devil” is the opening track on the record he put out right after that, For Earth Below, from 1975. It’s Trower on guitar, James Dewar on bass and that big soulful voice, and Bill Lordan on drums. A power trio, loud and heavy.
It was never a pop hit, and it was never meant to be. But everybody loved it, and everybody screamed for it when he came to town. So this pick might not be as familiar as some of the pop songs on the rest of this list. If you were a rock fan back then, you know exactly why it’s here.
# 2 – “Panama Red” – New Riders of the Purple Sage
New Riders of the Purple Sage came out of the California country-rock scene, close to the Grateful Dead crowd. But they rode that same roots-rock wave, and they had a big following of their own. Their legacy doesn’t loom as large as so many legendary bands from that scene, but those of us who were there remember them well. And if there’s one song we remember most, it’s “Panama Red.”
Peter Rowan composed “Panama Red.” The New Riders released it as the title track of their 1973 album The Adventures of Panama Red. It became an FM radio staple, and the album became the band’s first gold record. If you went to high school in the ’70s, “Panama Red” was part of your daily life in more ways than one, and I’ll leave it right there. If you’re a true kid from the ’70s, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
# 1 – “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” – Harry Chapin
You really had to be there for this one, which is the whole point of this article. Harry Chapin became a household name in 1974 with “Cat’s in the Cradle.” Everybody knows that one. But this song,”30,000 Pounds of Bananas” only the people who bought the album Verities & Balderdash or his live record Greatest Stories Live ever really knew it.
It’s a true story, more or less. On March 18, 1965, a truck driver named Eugene “Gene” Sesky came down a steep hill in Scranton, Pennsylvania, hauling 30,000 pounds of bananas. The truck lost control after a mechanical failure, and Sesky stayed with it as it tore down the hill, striking cars and other objects along the way. He was the only person killed in the crash.
It sounds like a grim story, and it is. But Chapin played it for laughs on stage. The song speeds up as the story races toward disaster, and at his shows he’d let the crowd enjoy different endings. It became one of the highlights of his concerts.
Like so much of the rest of this article, you had to be there. Were you?
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