Saturday, October 2, 2021

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Favorite Songs in Your High School Graduation Year

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun theme certainly came out of left field.  I was not expecting anything related to high school graduation for the first weekend in October.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) Do you remember your favorite songs in your high school graduation year?  Please tell us all about it.  (Note:  Wikipedia has the Billboard Hot 100 list for each year; Billboard has weekly Hot 100 lists for every year since 1946.)

For example, the Wikipedia list of Hot 100 songs for 1961 is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1961.  There are links to every year at the bottom of this page.

The Billboard Hot 100 songs for the week of 12 June 1961 is at https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/1961-06-12.

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

Okay, here's mine.

I graduated June 1, 1979 from Niceville Senior High School at the age of 17.  I, like Randy, was pretty much a social outcast at my school, and it wasn't helped by the fact that I lived 10 miles out of town, in the country, away from most of the people with whom I went to school.  I spent most of my free time at home, and a lot of that time was spent listening to the radio, although I tended to listen to country more than pop.  That said, a lot of the songs on the top 100 list for 1979 are very familiar to me.

I think I'll pick my favorite 10, like Randy did.  I'm pretty sure the first two on the list were my favorites at the time.  The rest aren't in any particular order.

• "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band

• "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers

• "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor

• "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward

• "My Life" by Billy Joel

• "What a Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers

• "Suspicions" by Eddie Rabbitt

• "Too Much Heaven" by the Bee Gees

• "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire

• "Somewhere in the Night" by Barry Manilow

6 comments:

  1. Wow, by 1979, I was working at BART and didn't have much time to listen to music. I only recognize the Barry Manilow and Kenny Rogers songs.

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  2. But you recognize Barry Manilow and not Billy Joel? That's interesting!

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    Replies
    1. Well, to be honest, I never remember artist names or song titles, but can sing along to a lot of songs. I know Billy Joel, but not sure which song that is.

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    2. As long as you sing. That's the most important part.

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  3. I remember most of these titles, but not the songs themselves. Billy Joel's My Life would be my favorite on this list.

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    Replies
    1. That's a good choice! What I found interesting was how many of the Top 100 I could hear in my head. Several of them, though, no clue whatsoever!

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