Posted on 02/02/2021 6:00:26 PM PST by luvie
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by the The Andrews Sisters was 1941. Bette Midler re-recorded it in 1972, which might be the version you are remembering. (I can’t get to your YouTube link right now.)
From the rest of your list, I have only heard of You Needed Me and Tusk. I’m guessing there are several country songs on the rest of the list, because I would have a hard time naming 10 country songs that predate when I met my wife (1987). (I’m also not great on 70s song titles, so maybe I know a few of the songs but not by title.)
Although the Andrews Sisters version of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” came out before Bette Middler’s 1973 release of that tune, please don’t tell anyone. I like the Andrews Sisters version—and the Andrews Sisters themselves—a lot better.
“You Needed Me” was a big hit and remains a favorite Oldie—it seems to have been inspired by the presidential election of 1920.
“Tusk” reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is played at every USC football game. Fleetwood Mac’s version didn’t include derogatory lines about UCLA that are heard when it is performed today.
It doesn’t surprise me that you have not heard of the others. The only one that charted in this country was “Whispering,” aka “Cherchez la Femme” (chase the girl), a remake of Paul Whiteman’s 1920 hit “Whispering” that reached #27 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Others on my list were hits abroad. “Schöne Maid” was a big hit in West Germany. “Is This the Way to Amarillo?” and “Don’t Let Him Touch You,” both by English acts, were big hits in Europe but apparently not in the US.
Anyone active in the 1976 presidential election, as I was with Youth for Reagan, will identify with “A Boy Named Hugh,” which got lots of airplay on Dr. Demento’s Sunday night radio show in Los Angeles (but nowhere else). I didn’t hear it again until it came to Youtube.
“Welfare Cadillac” was sort of an underground hit among conservatives. In 1970, President Nixon asked Johnny Cash to perform it during his White House concert, but he refused to do so. Drake also recorded “The Marching Hippies” (1971)
“Cheaper Food or No More Crude” got some airplay on local stations in 1979. The singer, Bobby Butler said that he walked the streets peddling his records to motorists sitting in long lines to buy gasoline during the oil shortage brought on by the Islamist revolution in Iran.
This is some of the fun stuff you can get on Youtube.
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