Free – "All Right Now" (1970)

I took her home to my place

Watching every move on her face

She said “Look, what’s your game?”

This month’s posts feature songs that I’ve chosen to include in this year’s class of 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME inductees.

Next month, we’ll be featuring the new members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.

I originally defined the 2 or 3 lines “GOLDEN DECADE” as spanning the years 1964 to 1973.  But I’ve decided to tweak that definition slightly.  (My blog, my rules.)

From this day forward, the “GOLDEN DECADE” is officially declared to have commenced in mid-1964 and ended in mid-1974.  

Why?  Because those years represent the decade when the best pop music the world has ever known was released.  

It also covers the time period that spans my years in junior high school, high school, and college.  (I entered the 7th grade – not to mention puberty – in August 1964, and graduated from college in May 1974.)

By the way . . . everyone thinks that the best music ever recorded was the music that was popular when he or she was a  teenager. 

I’ve got news for you: the best music ever recorded was the music that was popular when I was a teenager.  (That’s a fact, Jack!)

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The music I loved in high school was dramatically different from the music I loved in college.

Before my senior year in high school, I mostly listened to singles on the radio – often a car radio.

After I graduated from high school, I mostly listened to albums on my stereo.

Not surprisingly, most of the records that have been inducted into the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME were released while I was in junior high or high school, while most of the members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME were released when I was a college student.

But that’s changing with this year’s class of inductees into the hit singles hall of fame.  Today’s post is the first of three featuring hit singles from the seventies that I think of primarily as album tracks.  Those songs are very different from “I Get Around” and “Venus” and the other new 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME inductees that have been featured on 2 or 3 lines over the previous several weeks.

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In 1970, incoming Rice University freshmen – including yours truly – reported for orientation a week before classes started.

Rice University's Lovett Hall

I associate two songs that were on the radio that week with my first days as a college student:  Free's "All Right Now," and the last track of  Grand Funk's Closer to Home album, "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)."

As it turns out, my memory is pretty good.  Both those songs first appeared on the “Hot 100” singles chart in the September 5, 1970 issue of Billboard magazine – which would have shown up on newsstands about a week earlier, which is when I was getting oriented.  

I forget important sh*t all the time, but you’d best believe I remember the exact week that I first heard “All Right Now” and “Closer to Home” on the radio – even though that was almost 50 years ago.

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When Free played its first gig at London’s Nag’s Head pub in 1968, its members were 15, 17, 18 and 18 years old.

The group’s first two albums didn’t sell very well.  But their third LP, Fire and Water, was a big hit on the strength of “All Right Now,” which was a #4 hit in the U.S. and a #2 hit in the UK.

The week I was being oriented (orientated?) for my freshman year of college, Free was performing at the Isle of Wight festival, which attracted well over half a million fans.  

The other Isle of Wight acts that year included Chicago, Donovan, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, the Moody Blues, Procol Harum, Sly and the Family Stone, Ten Years After, and the Who.  (Not too shabby.)

Click here to listen to “All Right Now.”  

Click here to listen to the album version of the song.

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: