First, few artists dominated the early soundtrack of my life like The Carpenters. You almost couldn't go an hour listening to WRVA without hearing them, especially in light of the album from whence today's song comes from, "A Song For You".
The LP was released in 1972, the first single, "Bless The Beasts And The Children", premiered on radio in 1971, and they were still releasing singles from it in March, 1974, which is when this song made its radio debut. Interestingly enough, in the time period between recording the album and releasing this as a single, several other artists covered the song, released it, and it failed, including the song's writer, Paul Williams, and Maureen McGovern. Even Diana Ross recorded it for her "Touch Me In The Morning" LP, but it was never released as a single.
But back to "A Song For You"; this was the sixth and final single from the album, which included "Top Of The World" and "Hurting Each Other", each staples of "MOR" radio of the time period (do you know what "MOR" stands for??). :)
Based on my first observation of The Carpenters, this won't be their only appearance on the countdown. The only question will be which songs made it and which did not. Man, she left us way, way too soon, and though I doubt they would have been as successful commercially in, say, 1980's radio, imagine their staying power. Had they wanted to, they could have toured forever. But, sadly, we'll never know.
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