Hey, wait a minute! Who invited this creep to the countdown finale?
A lot has changed in the last seven months since I launched this fourth countdown series on my blog. The autumn leaves have made way for Spring buds. My kitchen got a brand new trench dug in the middle of it. The world went completely off the deep end. But what hasn’t changed is that in each and every one of the past 29 Mondays, the music has just gotten better and better! And today, we’ve finally reached the pinnacle. It’s time to present the song I chose above all others to sit at the summit of the Top 30 Songs We Just Feel Like Playing countdown!
This will be the final week DJ Scratchy will have to yield the Monday Muzak turntable to Evil Squirrel, and ES is going out with a bang. If you’ve ever created a countdown of any kind, there’s only one way to do it…. from the top down. In every single countdown I’ve written for The Nest, I had a number one song already in mind before I even started compiling a list of candidates. Because this countdown excludes songs I’ve featured before in a Monday post on this blog, as well as some that would qualify for a future Dusty Vinyl Archive, it’s far from a accurate list of my all time favorite songs. But this one would absolutely be somewhere in my Top 3 of anything every recorded….
Can I get a drum roll please, Hottie?
#1. “Fox on the Run” – Sweet
Remember that commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups where the one guy was walking down the street eating a chocolate bar, and some girl was coming from the other direction eating out of a tub of peanut butter? Such different flavors…. who knew they could taste so good together? Well, in the early 70’s, the edgy sound of hard rock wound up colliding with the bouncy feel of bubblegum pop… and the result was the British band who came to define the glam rock sound, Sweet. Sweet’s success was launched off the bubblegum lyrics of non-member songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, combined with the band’s own rock and roll flair.
And I’m sure the pretty makeup and shiny clothes helped as well…
One of Sweet’s influences was The Monkees, and like that American made for TV band, they got tired of being spoonfed perky songs written by other people, and wanted to show what they could do on their own. You know what…. I think they knew what they were doing. The very first single they released that was entirely created by the band also happened to be their biggest worldwide hit. And if that wasn’t enough of an honor, I easily chose it to top my Countdown of Whatever…
“Fox on the Run,” written about a groupie of the band, was originally recorded in 1974 to be included on Sweet’s album Desolation Boulevard, the last album Chinn and Chapman contributed to. But the version that is best known around the world, and particularly here in the US, is the rearranged single version Sweet recorded in 1975, which is what made the US release of Desolation Boulevard that same year. That more poppy version of “Fox,” which entered the charts not long after I was hatched, reached #5 in America, and was a #1 in many other countries…. and it is pure fucking musical magic from the trippy, high pitched whistle that it leads off with, right down to the final awesome rendition of the chorus…
It was electric! So frantically hectic!
And yet…. in America, about all Sweet is really remembered for is the rock novelty song Ballroom Blitz. While Sweet was nowhere near as popular here as they were across The Pond, their only four entries into the US Top 40 charts all reached the Top 10, with Ballroom Blitz tying Fox on the Run at #5. It’s about time the epic “Fox on the Run” got its due for the amazing earworm it is! What do you have to say about that, Mr. Fox?
……………………………….
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
We hope you enjoyed the Top 30 Songs We Just Feel Like Playing countdown as much as I enjoyed presenting it to you each week! DJ Scratchy and the Dusty Vinyl Archive will be bringing back the lost hits again starting next Monday…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
loved them… also the song … but then… then… the scorpions poop-formed this song in german… omg omg… sometimes it is better to be clueless and to stick with your misheard lyrics… LOL
I love pretty much every song The Scorpions did that is well known in America… but I don’t think I’d even want to them do a version of Fox on the Run. This is one of those songs that’s untouchable by any other artist!
What a Sweet way to end this series. It was unexpected, but was a nice proverbial cherry on the top of yet another song series. Thank you. This was so much fun.
I was pretty sure that nobody saw this coming, unlike my previous two countdowns. I might have another one sometime in the future, but for now, back to the lost music…
“Fox” definitely rocks. I wondered what would be your #1 and here it is – SWEET as it gets. Super countdown – it’s been tons of fun.
Pam
And thanks for listening! Can’t wait to make another visit to the Ding Dong cafeteria tomorrow morning so that I can become a fox with the runs…
A fine way to end this series. I’ve always welcomed this one into my ears whenever it comes up.
Great tune to wrap this countdown up. Looks like the boys’ hairdresser was socially distancing way-back-when. P.S. What a terrific/sparkly guitar prop! Love it. Prince might even have been pink with envy.
The guitar came from one of my sisters old toys. I don’t know if you remember Jem, but she was the 80’s rocker chick version of Barbie. As a pack rat who likes to hoard shiny things, it wound up sneaking into my collection of crap a long time ago…
It’s definitely a keeper!
Oh I remember this so well…was solo dancing to it in my teens. There’s another song (maybe more than one) that has the opening piece, but not as finely crafted (IMHO) and is highly disappointing when it turns out to be some other song besides “Fox”. I admit though that I loved Ballroom Blitz a great deal. Never knew who sang that one though. Thanks for the factoid! We all learn at Evil Squirrel’s Academy of Musical Trivia and Little Known Facts…
Ballroom Blitz ain’t bad, but it has nothing on Fox. And sadly, the only song of theirs that’s a Mecca earworm is “Love is Like Oxygen,” which was the worst of their four American hits. My ears perk up when I hear that intro, but that rarely happens anymore other than good old YouTube…
Oh how cool! I love this song! I never knew the name of the song or the band, but I hear this song all the time on the radio. Yay!!
I’ve enjoyed hearing the songs on your countdown! 🙂
You are lucky! I’d love to hear your radio station. I’ve listened to a number of oldies and 70’s themed stations over the past couple decades, but not a single one had this song in their regular rotation…
I twirl the dial between four different stations all the time to keep the songs playing. I don’t remember which station I hear this song on. We have:
93.7 The Eagle – Classic Rock/pop hits
94.5 KFMX – rock
98.1 – KKCL – classic hits
101.1 KONE – classic rock
Anyway, thanks for playing it here! 🙂
You can’t really go wrong with a song like that. Much as I was looking forward to lambasting your number one, I must grudgingly approve!
You wound up liking most of the songs near the top of my countdown. That definitely surprised me. I’ll have to run about four or five rap songs in a row in the DVA to make up for it…
Yes! Yes! I love this song!! I still have the 45 of it I bought so long ago. This is a stupendously good choice!
Woohoo!!!! See, I do like songs from the 70’s that don’t involve the D word!
Awesome ones at that!
I know this song! But I don’t think I ever knew who did it. The hair and the clothes gave me some good laughs!
Well, at least none of them were wearing a meat dress or had their pants down around their knees. There were a few positive things about the 70’s!