The top two songs of the year are both songs that failed to make the Billboard year-end chart because I hate you all for loving and following Billboard so much and I want you to be sad.

For real, though.  As I mentioned on the worst list, the Cashbox year-end chart showed there was far, far more to 1977 than met the Billboard eye.  And this next song was a big reason why.  How this incredible track failed to beat out “Cherchez La Femme” or B.J. Thomas’s cover of “Don’t Worry Baby” for a place on the year-end chart… beats me.  But in lieu of just restating my point about Cashbox again, let’s discuss the year rock had.

While 1977 wasn’t quite as good a pop music year as the previous year, nor would it be as solid as the next two years as disco dominated, it did mark quite a good year for rock music.  While R&B was in decline, disco was in transition, and country was almost invisible just two years after a big 1975, rock was probably the one genre still going as strong as it had been throughout the decade.  We just went over “Hotel California,” from an album that sold a whopping 32 million copies and spawned three hit singles, two of them number ones.  Manfred Mann’s Earth Band scored the other rock number one of the year with their cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded By The Light,” while Foreigner and Steve Miller Band both released classic singles.  Heck, almost all of my Sins of Omission were rock songs, and in order to narrow the list down to ten songs, I had to remove other rock songs from the likes of Queen (yes, again, “Tie Your Mother Down” is a banger) and Pink Floyd.  

But with all that said, when this track appeared near the end of the Cashbox year-end chart, I got particularly excited.  And relistening to this song while going through the list of eligible songs not only reiterated my love for this song, but proved to me that this is one of the all-time great classic rock songs.  Remember how my worst song of the year was the #100 song on the Cashbox year-end chart?  Well, this was what the 99th ranked song sounded like.  Quite a difference, huh?

“Foreplay/Long Time” – Boston

#22 peak (March 5-19, 1977), 10 weeks on chart
Did not qualify for Billboard year-end list
Eligible due to placement on Cashbox year-end list (#99)

Amidst my discussion of Eagles’s twin towers of Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) and Hotel California as well as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, I almost forgot to mention the other supermassive album of the age, Boston’s self-titled album.  Released in August 1976, Boston went diamond too as it eventually sold 17 million copies in America, with 22 million copies sold worldwide.  I listened to the full album in preparation for this entry, and while the album essentially has only one note – combining the biggest hooks with heavy production involving intergalactic guitar riffs and electronic effects to create a huge rock sound – man, that is one awesome note.  While “More Than A Feeling” became the band’s signature song the previous year with frontman Brad Delp’s impassioned vocals and one of the most iconic guitar riffs of the era and “Peace Of Mind” (also released in 1977) won fans over with its infectious harmonies, nothing on the album touches its third track, at the end of side one.

First order of business: there are going to be snobs reading this column who are going to say, “But Doctor, only “Long Time” charted!  “Foreplay” wasn’t part of the single!  DURRRRRR!!!!!”  But nothing.  To start off, unlike some, I’m judging the final rankings based on the version of the song that appears on the album.  I know that isn’t always the version that charts, but in my opinion, you’re missing part of the story when you skip the non-single parts and only pay attention to the parts you hear on the radio.  Furthermore, to me at least, “Foreplay” and “Long Time” are two parts of the same song.  Like “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions” and “Brain Damage/Eclipse,” there is no way to hear one part of “Foreplay/Long Time” without the other.  They just coexist, like two stars moving together in the sky.

Well… let’s get into this massive, near eight-minute behemoth.  “Foreplay” marks the first two and a half minutes of the song, and is also the first Boston song bandleader Tom Scholz wrote.  Scholz wrote the song in his basement in 1969, while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  There are two very, very minor criticisms I have regarding this song.  First off, “Foreplay/Long Time” should have been moved to the opening slot on the album and switched places with “More Than A Feeling.”  With its lengthy and dramatic intro lasting for several minutes before we hear the first verse, this track was just screaming to be the leadoff track.  Second, I don’t get the title, because “Foreplay” sounds nothing like two people getting ready to make love.  It is, if anything, the sonic replication of an explosion in a barnyard.  If it doesn’t make sense, the first time I remember hearing the “Foreplay” segment was when I was 17, when Dad was driving me home through the farmlands of the Genesee Valley at night after a season-ending loss in basketball.  So the imagery of that first time has stuck.

After Scholz’s space age Hammond organ intro, we get a galactic guitar slide before we hear the song’s main B flat-C-D flat-C-B flat-A flat-G-F-C-D flat-B flat-E flat-F power chord riff that just immediately brings a showstopping effect to what’s supposed to be a rock song.  The amount of energy dispensed during the main riff is just insane – Scholz’s lead guitar and organ combined with Sib Hashian’s drums are kicking up enough dust to start a tornado.  Then Fran Sheehan, only on the track because Epic begged Scholz to re-record the album’s demos with at least part of the band for the final album, reprises the lead guitar riff on his bass, with just the most evil and vile Seinfeld tone.  As the only breath of air we get in between the repetitions of the main guitar riff and organ, it’s the ominous warning before we’re about to get engulfed by yet another fiery explosion.  For an album where Sheehan only played on one other song (“Let Me Take You Home Tonight”) and doesn’t appear on the single portion of the track, I’d say a job well done.  He contributed as much in those five seconds than most bassists present on an album.

Then in “Foreplay” and its climax, we reach the point where Scholz’s keyboards become otherworldly bursts of noise, while the keyboard desperately reaches for the heavens against the chaos.  The conclusion to “Foreplay” represents the moment in the barnyard scene I discussed earlier where everything is obliterated, and all remaining are about to be abducted by an alien spaceship, presumably the guitar-shaped shuttle featured on Boston and its front cover.  The amount of tension built by Scholz in this final segment is unbelievable, as already before we reach the main part of the song, we all get chills.  I almost think when we finally reach the end of the world, this is what it will be like: something so supersonic and huge only to abruptly turn into nothing.  No moment of music in rock in 1977 is more exciting, and outrageously explosive, as this event.

“Long Time,” the hit portion of the track, builds on the format of the other two singles from the album, “More Than A Feeling” and “Peace Of Mind.”  And yet somehow, it tops them both with explosive guitar work, the most incredible Boston harmonies yet, and a message that sounds so profound yet so relatable.

Everyone shows up to work on “Long Time.”  Hashian’s drumming is steady, Scholz’s organ riff and acoustic guitar riff before the chorus are concise and effectively played, and frontman Brad Delp’s vocals are impassioned and far-reaching as they usually are.  Not to mention the melodies are as strong as ever, especially at the “I’ve gotta be on my way” lyric.  There is no part of this section where you don’t just stop and pay attention.  If you don’t, then you’re asleep.  But it’s guitarist Barry Goudreau, again playing on just one of two tracks he appears on for the album, who steals the show with his out-of-this-world guitar solos.  Already his guitar playing in the verses is scorching with his ascending lead guitar leading up to his F chord in the middle of each verse.  Goudreau has three guitar solos on “Long Time,” and you remember each and every one of them.  The first solo has the breathtaking reach to the upper part of the neck, and his rapid-fire triplets on the second verse foreshadowed the rise of hair metal in the subsequent decade.  And the third and final guitar solo, after the second chorus, is the ultimate air guitar moment of the year, the moment where it’s impossible to not try to pretend you’re dueling Goudreau the master guitarist.  The technical sped-up sixteenth notes, downward slides, and breathtaking climax with the organ and Delp’s vocals just leaves you sitting there in awe.  And yet, the music isn’t the only part of the song that serves as a testament to one of the best songs of the year.

Few songs have been able to make its basic and tried-and-true message sound as profound as “Foreplay/Long Time.”  On the surface, it’s yet another breakup song where the narrator regrettably announces his intention to leave a woman, explaining that he will need to let go of her in order to achieve a lifelong dream.  But to me, “Foreplay/Long Time” is about much more than that.  It’s about leaving your own personal wants behind in order to become part of something so profound, so spiritual, that the message surpasses those lame “Positive message” websites and news feeds and truly becomes inspirational.

It’s been such a long time
I think I should be goin’, yeah
And time doesn’t wait for me
It keeps on rollin’

The narrator comes to the realization that in order to chase his unknown dream, he will have to take action now, rather than later.  If he blinks, he might miss it.  The verse is all about how now is the time, and seizing the moment.

There’s a long road, I’ve gotta stay in time with, yeah
I’ve got to keep on chasin’ that dream
Though I may never find it
I’m always just behind it

When we chase our dreams, whether it be to become a star baseball player or something small as becoming a restaurant owner, we are all going to have to take risks.  It may require ending up somewhere far away from your family, or having to say goodbye to close friends.  And sometimes, the end is never in sight.  We just have to keep looking to make progress towards our goal, regardless of who may be affected or even how we are affected.  And that to me is part of the reason “Long Time” is so great.  Not only is it infinite levels of awesome from a musical perspective, but it’s also a positive message everyone can relate to.  

Tom Scholz can sure relate.  His original dream was to become a mechanical engineer, which is what took him to Boston in the first place, taking him away from his original home in Toledo, which just so happens to be where I settled as an adult.  Well, that takes care of my future “Best Songs from Toledo” list’s top slot.  When relistening to this song for this list, I was listening to the song while driving around neighborhoods mere minutes from where Scholz grew up and first learned to play piano.  How fitting that moving to Scholz’s neck of the woods reiterated my unconditional love of this song.

Before we move on, I just missed out on my favorite musical moment of the song… the moment right before the final chorus where Scholz’s acoustic guitar is replaced by Goudreau’s scathing and vicious recitation of the F-E flat-B flat guitar riff.  It is the ultimate headbanging moment of the year, the moment where we all put up the sign of the horns.  You just wish it could’ve been like this before every chorus, but then again, it’s also the perfect representation of the wisdom of a certain cartoon character:

Beavis: “How come they don’t just, like, play that cool part through the whole song?”
Butthead: “Well Beavis, if they didn’t, like, have a part of the song that sucked, then it’s, like, the other part wouldn’t be as cool.”

“Foreplay/Long Time” is a masterpiece.  Every part of the song is outstandingly played while containing enough force to destroy a planet.  The lyrics are a powerful message to anyone looking to make their dreams, big or small, come true.  Boston may have been a massive album, but “Foreplay/Long Time” remains the titanic force of the record that makes all the success it has received worth it.  Boston marked the apex of the traditional forms of music present in 1977… with only one revolutionary song standing in its way of the year’s top slot.

UP NEXT: Before we get to the best song of the year, let’s go over the long list of honorable mentions.

SOURCES

“RIAA: Eagles’ Greatest Hits Certified 38x Platinum, Passing ‘Thriller.’” Associated Press 20 August 2018. Billboard. Web. 7 August 2022 https://www.billboard.com/pro/riaa-eagles-greatest-hits-certified-38x-platinum-passing-thriller/.

MJD. “Boston Albums And Song Sales.” Chartmasters 1 June 2019. Web. 8 August 2022 https://chartmasters.org/2019/06/boston-albums-and-songs-sales/.

“Boston History.” Boston 2022. Web. 8 August 2022 https://web.archive.org/web/20120601000627/http://www.bandboston.com/html/history_html.html.

“More Than A Feeling… Tom Scholz Speaks With The Sierra Club.” Sierra Club 2008. Web. 8 August 2022 https://web.archive.org/web/20140311050014/http://www.sierraclub.org/boston/scholz_interview.asp.

IMAGE SOURCES

Single cover from CDandLP

Image of UFO from Las Vegas Review-Journal

Photo of Boston from Wikipedia