Here in San Francisco we have a thing on a local radio station called 10 at 10 – 10 Great Songs from One Great Year.  It is played every day at 10 a.m.  It’s a lot of fun, not only because they pull out some top hits that still get played as quintessential examples of a time period, but also they dig up some one hit wonders or songs that were popular but aren’t considered worth hearing much.  “Winchester Cathedral” from somewhere in the depths of the mid-60’s comes to mind as an example.

A local friend has taken to texting me when a particularly good set is playing, and because I’m often driving around at that time of day I am often sharing the fun memories that such music evokes.  We have been friends for a very long time, so the 70’s are a time period we get a kick out of.  I am particularly fond of songs of the summers in the 70’s.  I was in high school and college – just beginning to feel the freedom of young adulthood.

It is so interesting how music can take us back – make us see and hear and feel things long forgotten.  “Benny and the Jets” – a hot summer night in Milwaukee in a pub on the East Side – not a care in the world, and feeling independent, my first summer away from home in the summer of ’75.  “Saturday in the Park”, driving to my first job at Wieboldt’s department store the summer of ’71, again a feeling of freedom that only a song could make me feel again.  “Smoke on the Water” the collegiate year I went to Lake Geneva for the fourth of July with Tony and Vince – free, free, free.  “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” – riding my bike to the Coliseum in Milwaukee to sit outside and maybe catch an earful of the Pink Floyd concert (it started to rain – pour – and word had it most of the visual electrical part of the show could not be performed).  “Ball of Confusion” – perfect anthem for the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school.

Each day on 10 at 10 the fans vote for Best of Set.  Today was 1973.  The song I am going to link to was a favorite of mine and it’s innocence mirrors exactly where I was that year – one year into college, part woman, part girl, beginning to learn life’s hard lessons but my protective shell not brittle enough to look down my sophisticated nose at such a sweet song.  Hearing it today brought me to a place I haven’t been in a long time.  A warm summer day in the Midwest, in love (I always was with someone) and romantic as hell.

Where were you?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJdkCs5RdQg&feature=related