Category Archives: 1970s songs

The best 500 songs from the 1970s. Meanings, lyrics and interpretations from your favorite seventies artists. Fleetwood, The Eagles, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Queen and all your favorite 70s artists ranked.

1970s songs, family problems

#119 Teach Your Children- CSNY

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Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young created a lot of songs that were not only great, but also iconic: “Teach Your Children” is at the top of the list. This is a song that seems to transcend time. Doesn’t it feel more like a traditional song than like something that was written in the seventies? A lot of their songs give me that feeling. Another one that comes to mind is Our House.

Teach Your Children meaning
CSNY

Unique about “Teach Your Children” is that the first half of the song is advice to teach your children well and the second half is for young folks to “teach” their parents. We don’t normally think of kids teaching their parents, but Nash does an interesting thing here in trying to explain parents’ fears to the kids that at the time was his audience. Notice he doesn’t take a side. He feels we could both do better at teaching each other.

The slide guitar in “Teach Your Children” stands out as giving it that country rock vibe that CSN are so often associated with. Of course, CSNYs harmonies are amazing. The secondary singers weave in and out between singing harmony on the lead and singing backup to create a unique sound. It is a hard vocal to pull off.

Teach Your Children Lyrics

You who are on the road
Must have a code- that you can live by.
And so become yourself,
Because the past is just a good-bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh,
And know they love you.

And you, of tender years,
Can’t know the fears that your elders grew by.
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.

Teach your parents well,
Their children’s hell will slowly go by.
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh, and know they love you.
written by Graham Nash

1970s songs, conservation

#118 The Last Resort- The Eagles

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You call someplace Paradise/
Kiss it goodbye.

“The Last Resort” is The Eagles take on Manifest Destiny. Henley talks about how the west was referred to as the last resort and look what has happened to it. There is practically nothing left of it. It is all buildings. There is nowhere left to go. What we once called paradise is now…what? Not so great.

The Last Resort Meaning
The Eagles

In the end he says isn’t it interesting how Christians talk about how Heaven is a paradise? Every time something gets called a paradise it is ruined. The song speaks to conservation but also to human propensity toward excess.

The soft piano coupled with Henley’s earnest story-telling combines to tell a harrowing tale…if we don’t start changing, we are in trouble. This is our last chance to get things right. There is no more new frontier on Earth. This song is a nice change of pace for The Eagles. It’s not a song about women or sex and rocknroll, it shows they are not a one-trick pony.

The Last Resort Lyrics

She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams like a refugee,
Just as her father came across the sea

She heard about a place people were smilin’,
They spoke about the red man’s way, how they loved the land
And they came from everywhere to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars out for a good time,
Can’t wait to tell you all what it’s like up there
And they called it paradise, I don’t know why
Somebody laid the mountains low while the town got high

Then the chilly winds blew down across the desert,
Through the canyons of the coast to the Malibu
Where the pretty people play hungry for power
To light their neon way and give them things to do

Some rich man came and raped the land, nobody caught ’em,
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes and, Jesus, people bought ’em
And they called it paradise, the place to be,
They watched the hazy sun sinking in the sea

You can leave it all behind and sail to Lahaina
Just like the missionaries did so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign ‘Jesus is Coming’,
Brought the white man’s burden down, brought the white man’s reign

Who will provide the grand design, what is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier, we have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs and justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny and in the name of God

And you can see them there on Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about what it’s like up there
They called it paradise, I don’t know why
You call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye.

written by Frey/Henley

1970s songs, looking for love

#105 Going to California- Led Zeppelin

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Tryin’ to find a woman who’s never, never, never been born.

Led Zeppelin begins “Going To California” talking about the woman he left. She was unkind: she smoked all his stuff and drank all his wine. So obviously he needs to find a better woman. So, he heads to California. Maybe literally, maybe not. California is where dreams come true and he is looking for his dream girl.

Some of his friends tell him all women are the same, but he doesn’t believe them…so off he goes. It turns out to be harder to find this woman than he thought it would be. In fact, this dream woman might not exist. But he is going to keep trying.

Going to California Meaning
Zeppelin

The guitar combined with the mandolin creates a unique sound that we don’t hear elsewhere from Led Zeppelin, maybe anywhere. It sounds kind of magical. It goes great with the theme of the lyrics. When you combine that with the echo from Plant’s lyrics, it forms a mystical song about the search for love.

The bridge on “Going to California” is pretty crazy. It works, but I could never imagine putting that bridge with this song. While Zeppelin gets critiqued for their tendency to borrow from other bands, this is a unique combination that I don’t think we would hear from any other band. All of these unique pieces combine to make “Going to California” one of Led Zeppelin’s finest songs.

Going To California Lyrics

Spent my days with a woman unkind
Smoked my stuff and drank, all my wine
Made up my mind to make a new start
Going to California with an aching, in my heart
Someone told me there’s a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers, in her hair
Took my chances on a big jet plane
Never let ’em tell you that they’re all the same

The sea was red and the sky was grey
Wondered how tomorrow, could ever follow today
The mountains and the canyons start to tremble and shake
As the children of the sun began to awake

Seems that the wrath of the gods
Got a punch on the nose, and it started to flow
I think I might be sinking
Throw me a line, if I reach it in time
I’ll meet you up there where the path runs straight and high

To find a queen without a king
They say she plays guitar and cries and sings…
La la la la
Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn
Tryin’ to find a woman who’s never, never, never been born
Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams
Telling myself it’s not as hard, hard, hard as it seems…

written by Page and Plant