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My Nine Favorite Songs From 1975 (Plus Nine I Hate to Admit I Liked)

If you know me, you know why I picked this year

Paul Combs
5 min readApr 17, 2022
Bruce and the Big Man, 1975 (Image source: sths.org)

Last month Pierce McIntyre threw down the gauntlet with the prompt: what were your 16 favorite songs when you were 16 years old? Unable to resist these monthly challenges from Plethora of Pop, I of course responded (you can find that article at the end of this piece). I was 16 in 1982, and it turned out to be a pretty good year for music. Ever since I wrote it, though, I’ve been thinking about my favorite songs from the year that matters most to me: 1975, the year I was nine.

If you’ve read even a few of my articles you already know that 1975 was pivotal for me (and the universe) for one reason: in August of that year Bruce Springsteen released Born to Run, the greatest album ever, which happened to also contain The Greatest Song Ever. But what else was I listening to during that Year of Years? Surely I had the radio on between January and August, so I scoured my memory and came up with my nine favorite songs from the year before I hit double digits.

“Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. Tramps like us. The Greatest Song Ever is by definition the best song from the year it was released. Duh.

“Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen. Like I was going to leave this one off. “Thunder…

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Paul Combs
Paul Combs

Written by Paul Combs

Writer, bookseller, would-be roadie for the E Street Band. My ultimate goal is to make books as popular in Texas as high school football...it may take a while.

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