Song of the day

“It’s A Long Way There”, by Little River Band.

 

There is an Apple Music playlist called “I Miss The Seventies”. The more I listen to it, the more I am inclined to think that this might be true.

It has also caused me to wonder whether I should have taken Little River Band more seriously.

Maybe they were two bands in one: the purveyor of lowest-common-denominator singles (if I never hear “Help Is On Its Way” or “Happy Anniversary” again I won’t be disappointed); and the classy "AOR" unit exemplified by “It’s A Long Way There”. (Actually that doesn’t work: “It’s A Long Way There” was also released as a single. But the single is only half as long as the version that opens their debut album. The extra length, I think, takes the song from good to great, while also serving as an advertisement for what they thought they could achieve.) The question being: what had I been missing?

It was with some disappointment, therefore, that I listened to the rest of their first album, and discovered that it is, by my own calculations, eight parts dross to one part diamonds.

I will say this, though: guitar solos were better in the seventies.