![]() Of course, there are some traditional love songs among the tracks that are included, but they're usually revivals of old songs, such as Bobby Vinton's "I Love How You Love Me" (copyright 1961) and Mama Cass' "Dream a Little Dream of Me" (1931). Thomas from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and attempts a species of social criticism (of the entertainment industry, anyway) in "Do You Know the Way to San Jose." Actually, the easy listening charts of the time were even odder than you would know by listening only to this compilation, since several big hits are not included, unique songs like the 5th Dimension's Hair medley "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" and Zager and Evans' bizarre time-travel lament "In the Year 2525," though the most glaring omissions are Herb Alpert's "This Guy's in Love with You" and Peter, Paul & Mary's "Leaving on a Jet Plane," both fairly conventional love songs. Even Burt Bacharach's lyric partner Hal David muses his way through "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (sung by B.J. ![]() Hall takes on small-town hypocrisy in "Harper Valley P.T.A." (recorded by Jeannie C. Alan and Marilyn Bergman reveal the influence of Bob Dylan and other highly poetical writers in their elliptical lyrics to "The Windmills of Your Mind" (recorded by Dusty Springfield) country writer Mel Tillis discusses the effects of "that old crazy Asian war" in "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" (recorded by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition) and country writer Tom T. And even some of the more commercial writers turn to more thoughtful or philosophical approaches. In this collection of music from 1968-1969, nearly all of which made the Top Ten of Billboard magazine's easy listening chart and all of which made the Top 40 of the magazine's Hot 100 pop chart (the latter figures are provided in the annotations), one can hear the incursions of more serious-minded singer/songwriters like Laura Nyro ( the 5th Dimension's "Wedding Bell Blues"), Joni Mitchell ( Judy Collins' "Both Sides Now"), Dory Previn ( the Sandpipers' "Come Saturday Morning" from the film The Sterile Cuckoo), and Fred Neil ( Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" from the film Midnight Cowboy), even though they do not appear as recording artists. By the late '60s, even the world of easy listening music had come to be affected by the cultural and political upheavals of the times. ![]()
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