Sorry I’m late with this – it’ll never happen again.  In fact, forget I said that…this never happened in the first  place.  Welcome to this perfectly on time Music Friday wherein I will examine the BillBoard Hot 100 chart for the year 1972 in furtherance of my attempt to determine my “peak music year”.  A quest, incidentally that was inspired by this post at the Althouse blog.  Althouse is a “who”, not a “where” .  Though she is aware.  Anyway, you should click over and take a look at her blog.  It is well worth your time.  OK, hat-tipping now having been dispensed with, let us move on to the chart.  My first impression is that this years offerings are a fairly diverse group of songs with (without?) one notable absence – there are no counterculture overtones in any of the rock songs.  This seems a little odd to me, given the year.  As I remember that time much of the unrest that began in the late 1960’s was coming to a boil.  Anyway, any social unrest of the time isn’t reflected in the music that charted that year – most of it is pretty typical pop music.  There’s also some serious nonsense, which I will adress in a followup post.

It’s a little difficult to pick a “winner” since no group or artist had multiple songs reach #1, though one artist did reach #1 twice with the same song.  But if I declare him the winner, I will just have to end this right now by hanging myself.  Or treating myself to jumping off a nearby tower.  Because that artist is Gilbert O’Sullivan and the song is Alone Again, Naturally.  Another song worth noting, and possibly worth a “win” based soley on it’s iconic status in popular culture is American Pie (parts I & II) by Don McLean.  It feels a little like the folk-rock protest songs of the day (Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag, anyone?), but McLean’s ballad is a lament – not a protest.  So here you go:

The song with the longest stretch at #1 was The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack with six weeks at the top.  On that basis I would have to say that it is also a contender for “winner” of 1972.  Give a listen:

There were two other songs that spent four weeks apiece at #1.  One was Without You by Harry Nilsson.  I am a Nilsson fan, though this is not one of my favorites:

The next one was I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash:

Meh.  In my opinion.  Though it did have some longevity – I still hear it today.  But this is about my taste in music.  Me me me.  So, I guess I need to pick a winner.  I know who the loser is – me.  I don’t really care enough about any of these songs to pick a winner.  I’ll call it a four way tie and leave it at that.  Or you can vote for your favorite in the comments and I’ll declare the winner based on that vote count.  No matter what, I know one thing I can declare:  1972 is NOT my “peak music year”.  That is all.  See ya!