Since Brian Wilson’s death the good lady and I have been listening to the Beach Boys a lot. While doing so it struck me that even without God Only Knows, Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains they would still be remembered – even revered – for songs like I Get Around, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Help Me Rhonda, California Girls, Do It Again, Break Away and the arrangement on Sloop John B. And too, the slower, more thoughtful tracks like In My Room, Don’t Worry Baby and The Warmth of the Sun.

I discount here the early surfing inspired tracks Surfin’ Safari, Surfin’ USA and Surfer Girl. (Very few people now remember Jan and Dean, after all.) The ‘hot rod’ songs, Little Deuce Coupe and Fun, Fun, Fun might just creep in however.

I always had a liking for this one though, the B-side of Sloop John B.

The Beach Boys: You’re So Good To Me

It turns out that while I was away one of the authors of the song which gives this category its title died.

Steely Dan was one of those acts which seem to stand apart from the general run of their musical contemporaries. In their time but not of their time.

I’ve already posted Reelin’ In the Years of course, but also Do it Again, Rikki Don’t Lose That Number and Daddy Don’t Live In That New York City No More.

This is one of their UK hits from 1976 that doesn’t seem to have charted in the US, perhaps not released as a single there.

Steely Dan: Haitian Divorce

Walter Carl Becker: 20/2/1950 – 3/9/2017. So it goes.

This would have been a good title for the category – except I went with Reelin’ in the Years instead.

It makes a good match with last week’s offering.

Steely Dan: Do It Again

Do It Again would have made a good title for this category.

The single represented something of a comeback for the Beach Boys and brought back memories of the early surfing songs.

As I recall Do It Again was one of the singles which featured in an unprecedented (and unrepeated) three-way tie at No 1 in the charts along with Herb Alpert’s This Guy’s in Love With You and a third one I’m not sure of but may have been the Bee Gees’ I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You.

You may remember me mentioning that one of my school mates was a big Beach Boys fan. He really liked Do It Again’s b-side Wake the World – a very short song indeed – which I include here for your pleasure.

The Beach Boys: Do It Again

The Beach Boys: Wake the World

Last year I started my Friday On My Mind ramblings as a result of a competition at my workplace for best song of the Nineteen Sixties. Well, the year has rolled round and this time it was the Nineteen Seventies. The same rules applied – a hit single in either the UK or the USA.

Given the tweeness of last year’s winner, Daydream Believer, there was quite a bit of discussion about what the equivalent 70s song might be. The great fear was it would be Eurovision winner, Save Your Kisses For Me. Thankfully it wasn’t. It turns out the judging panel went for overblown bombast instead. Second place went to Free’s All Right Now and the winner was Bruce Springsteen with Born To Run.

Well, that may have been a hit in the States but it certainly wasn’t in Britain.

It was a second winner in a row from the US, though. So much for British pop!

To try to sum up a whole decade with one song is impossible of course but for most pervasive 1970s song Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody must be up there practically unchallenged.

There is an argument that (much like sexual intercourse) the 60s didn’t begin in musical terms until the arrival of The Beatles. In the same way the musical decade could be said to linger until the advent of glam rock which I would date to Marc Bolan’s selling out and the release of Hot Love in 1971. The musical 70s then only spanned the brief time from 1971 to 1977, when punk came along.

Also, the 70s – certainly in its early years – was actually more the decade of the album than the single (by and large the two were aimed at different markets and barely talked to each other) so that fact alone automatically rules out a lot of good stuff.

Still, to my mind there are many, many better 70s singles than Born To Run to choose from. A lot of them will have been album tracks first I suppose.

I’ve featured elsewhere Albert Hammond’s Free Electric Band, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Ohio and The Beach Boys’ Student Demonstration Time.

After toying with Al Stewart’s Time Passages, I thought either Do It Again or Reelin’ In The Years, both by Steely Dan, would be a good umbrella term for a selection from the 70s. I settled on Reelin’ In The Years.

So here’s the not overblown and far from bombastic Steely Dan. (They’re still from the US though.)

Steely Dan: Reelin’ In The Years