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06/17/2005 Entry: "Jim's MI-5"

1. Tell us an AM radio hit from the 70s that has special meaning to you or evokes some sort of memory . Mind you this shouldn't be your favorite or least favorite song.
BJ Thomas's version of "Rain Drops Keep Fallin' on my Head." My Aunt Ginny had a portable record player and a bunch of 45s. I can remember listening to them both at her house and at my grandmother's house. This particular tune was released in '69, but went gold in 1970, so Jim said I could count it. I really wanted to use Neil Diamond's version of La Bamba on Bang Records. I can even remember the label looked like this one. But that record was '67, so I couldn't use it. Also in that stack or 45s was "Big John" by sausage king Jimmy Dean.

2. Tell us your favorite AM radio hit and tell us why. If you don't have any then choose any song from the 70s and tell us about that.
John Stewart's "Gold." My Aunt Grace bought my cousin Jason an 8-track in the late 70s. She belonged to the Columbia House tape club. She found this 8-track with cover art sporting a very Star Wars-y looking cover. He liked Star Wars, so she bought it for him. In reality, the tape had nothing to do with Star Wars. It was just glomming on to the fame. This song was on the tape, and I really loved it. We almost never heard it on the radio, so I had to get my fix from the tape. I recently downloaded the tune,and let me tell you, not many people are sharing it on MP3. (FYI, other songs on the tape I remember were Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" and the Doobie Brother's "Minute by Minute."

3. Now do the same for your least favorite. Same rules as question 2 apply here.
This is really hard! I had to look at the Time Life AM Gold listings to find an answer for #2. Now I have to pick one I hate? Argh!"Build Me Up Buttercup" was '68, or I'd use that one. "Rock the Boat" by whoever they are. Somebody in my family (I swear I am not making this up) bought another family member (my brother Mike?) one of those motion activated stuffed Billy Bass things. But it wasn't a bass. It was a lobster. And it sang this song. I wanted to die.

4. Do you have a 70s band you wish would reunite (dead members can come back to life) or one you wish hadn't broken up at all?
I would so be into a Sly and the Family Stone reunion.

5. What are your feelings on transubstantiation?
For those of you who haven't been playing along at home, transubstantiation is the belief that bread and wine taken in communion turn into the literal body and blood of Christ. I don't believe it. It's all symbolic to me. If Christ's work was finished at Calvary, why would we need to, in a sense, beak his true body and drain his blood all over again? No, for me, the first time was enough. We do it for rememberance. There's no sacrement in it.