Max Picks …songs from 1976

1976

The bicentennial in America and everything that wasn’t nailed down was painted Red, White, and Blue. It was the first year I remember becoming aware of news and popular culture. In 1977 I would start watching the news and following baseball.

I always liked the imagery of this song.

When Phil Lynott was a kid his mother Philomena ran an illegal drinking den in Manchester, England. Phil was often with his mother in this den. Some of her most frequent returning customers were members of the Quality Street Gang (a group of criminals operating in Manchester, England, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s).

He would spend his time observing the gang, their mannerisms, the way they talk, and the way they fight. All of this observation eventually inspired him to write a song about them called “The Boys Are Back In Town.”

I always liked this song by Seger. This song is a staple on classic radio and I still listen to it when it comes on. Seger has great imagery in this song.It took Seger around six months to write this song. Along with “Turn The Page,” this was one of just two songs Seger ever wrote on the road. Night Moves was a breakthrough hit for Seger, introducing the heartland rocker to a much wider audience. He had been very popular in Michigan ever since his first album in 1969… which had the hit Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man. That song went to #17 on the Hot 100, but over the next few years, he struggled to make a national impact.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird was originally released on the (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd) in 1973 but the live version is what hit in 1976 with a single released off of One More From The Road. This is when the song became a legend. Personally, I like the studio version of it a lot but live it was unbeatable.

It’s become so ingrained that people will shout this out at concerts. In 2016 someone shouted this out at a Bob Dylan concert…guess what? Bob and his band went into the ending of the song where it rocks.

This is the band at Knebworth in 1976.

Punk was around in the UK and in America, we had the Ramones.

The Ramones were no frills and to the point. No long solos (or any) or instrumental breaks. Just 2-minute rock songs full of energy. This was the song that helped launch the Ramones.

The song never charted but is probably their best-known song because of the many movies, TV shows, and commercials it’s been in. The song was mainly written by drummer Tommy Ramone, while bassist Dee Dee Ramone came up with the title (the song was originally called “Animal Hop”). Dee Dee also changed one line: the original third verse had the line “shouting in the back now”, but Dee Dee changed it to “shoot ’em in the back now.”

This song still sounds fresh today. Got To Get You Into My Life was on Revolver released in 1966. It was not released as a single at the time. Any other band would have released it as a single.

In 1976 it was released as a single and peaked at #7 in the Billboard 100…not bad for a song that was 10 years old. It was released off of the horribly packaged compilation album Rock and Roll Music. Capital Records seemed to forget The Beatles represented the 60s, not the 50s that the album cover represented.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

35 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1976”

  1. Can’t argue with any of those choices, especially “Boys Are Back in Town” and “Free Bird,” If either of them comes on the radio when I’m driving I crank it to 11 till my ears bleed. Here are a few from 1976 that I dig to this day:

    -More Than a Feeling (Boston)
    -American Girl (Petty)
    -Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (AC/DC)
    -Somebody to Love (Queen)
    -Another Star (S. Wonder)

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    1. American Girl and Somebody to Love…those are high on the list…all great picks. My favorite Stones song was this year also…Memory Motel.
      I only gave myself 5 spots and this gets hard.

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  4. For me, we are now entering the dark ages. Not a lot of great music compared to the previous decade. The highlights of 1975 for me were Stevie Wonder’s album “Songs in the Key of Life” and Dylan’s “Desire”. Both are hard to pick a single song from. It is bizarre to me that “Got to get you into my life” was a single in 1976. My friends had a horn-heavy (trumpet, trombone, alto sax) band in high school and this was one of their best songs – and way before the single was released. (Along with “Savoy Truffle”, one of the few Beatles songs to feature horns prominently – at least that I can think of at the moment.) The bicentennial was a low point in American consumerism. I saved a two page newspaper ad that was headed “The Great American Buycentennial”, as it epitomized how that year was treated in US commerce.

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    1. I was 9 and you are right…everything was a bicentennial sale… everywhere.
      Yea music started to change. I always wanted to play music with a horn section just once. For me it’s the mid-80s that turns into a vast wasteland save for alternative music.
      Oh Good Morning Good Morning is a song I like the horns in also…Got to Get You Into My Life is probably the best I would think.

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  5. I loved baseball in the late 70s and I was a big Mets fan, but the Steroid Era ruined it for me. All these players were testing positive and still denying that they were juicing. All of these heroes like Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds were breaking the rules and also breaking all of the records and I felt it was unfair. If steroids were made legal, I would have not had a problem with that, but all these kids were looking up to these players that I see as cheaters. Anyway, nice music, Max.

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    1. I had a problem with it also…but it’s been cleaned up a lot…the NFL went through a long period of it…I still think all the sports still use some of the harder to detect things…

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  6. Fine choices! I never knew the background of ‘Boys are Back in Town’, that was interesting. to me, Boston and Peter Frampton were the 2 big albums that stick out in my mind; ‘Hotel California’ would be but I always seem to think of it as a ’77 one (looking it up it came out Dec. 8, ’76). Though there were good AM singles that year, I tend to think of it as a bit of a ‘weak’ year compared to 72-75 and then ’77-80.

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    1. Damn!!!!!! I meant to have Peter Frampton…damn damn damn…
      I knew I was forgetting an obvious one. I thought about Boston as well…that one could have made it but Frampton was meant to be here.
      I’ll include him on my missed post.

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      1. Tough to cover all the bases, so to speak! Surprising no one’s whining about the lack of a certain #1 by a certain singin’, dancin’ waterfowl!
        As a Canadian kid, I loved seeing the colorfulness & celebrations of the Bicentennial btw.

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      2. I remember the red, white, and blue….when I see those colors I think of that year… also yellow and green are also colors I think of that decade.

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  8. i like your list! i’d add David Bowie’s “golden years”– which i think dropped in late 1975 as a single, but was on the 1976 album Station to Station. you just have to have bowie!! ❤

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  11. This was a relatively ‘meh’ year for me music wise. A lot of ‘OK’ but not a lot that stuck in the brain. The Ramones were one of the few that made themselves heard, and despite them being 2 minutes and gone Big Radio didn’t like them. The Starland Vocal Blands ‘Afternoon Delight’ sort of sums it up for me; mildly diverting but essentially empty mid tempo stuff, sort of waiting for something new to happen. In retrospect Punk and Disco- or something- HAD to happen! it was all a bit stale.

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    1. No lol…I doubt if they will on that one! No I grew up with them also. My sister would not stop play The Hustle.
      There are so many…I only gave myself 5 slots…it’s hard! I forgot Frampton! That is my biggest regret in this one….

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  13. Some of my earliest memories are from 1976, and possibly the earliest is of the Bicentennial. I remember watching the parade of sail in New York Harbor from a closed-to-traffic highway in Brooklyn. I was 2.5 at the time.

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    1. Wow…that is some recall…I was 9 so I remember it pretty well…it was 1977 that I really started to pay attention to everything around me.
      A lot of vareity shows at the time celebrating the 200th

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  14. 1976 wasn’t a great year for music in my opinion, but here’s my Top 10:

    1. Love Hangover (long version) – Diana Ross
    2. Lowdown – Boz Scaggs
    3. Do You Feel Like We Do? – Peter Frampton
    4. If You Leave Me Now – Chicago
    5. (Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
    6. Dream Weaver – Gary Wright
    7. You Should Be Dancing – Bee Gees
    8. Fooled Around and Fell in Love – Elvin Bishop
    9. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
    10. Sara Smile – Hall & Oates

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  15. That was quite a year for music, and mostly not in a good way. I can’t argue with your list, but I never heard of The Ramones back then. I only WISH I’d heard Blitzkrieg Pop on the radio instead of what was played. It seems like ‘yacht rock’ was really gaining a foothold at that time. And then from there we were inundated with Andy Gibb and Kiss.

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    1. Yea I tried to leave ‘yacht rock’ out when possible…and huh…I left the Eagles off all together! How bad of me lol.

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      1. I thought I detected a lack of Eagles, hehe. I won’t be complaining about that. Those years they were constantly on the radio. The mere mention of them makes ‘Take it to the Limit’ start playing in my head.

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      2. Ironically that is the only song I can take from that period…thats because my Dad liked it and it stuck with me….the rest no.

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  16. I’m no good with dates so I had to look it up. One of my favorites is attributed to this year. Somehow I tripped over the Slipstream album by Sutherland Brothers and Quiver. I never heard them on the radio (and I’m told they had hits) but I loved “Slipstream” and “Secrets.” Anybody else remember them?

    Oh, I should say, a quick search on Goggle posts a handful of URLS to You Tube for them.

    I still love those two songs.

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