A soothing summer breeze. The first stirrings of desire. A lazy Saturday in the park.

The enduring appeal of 70s pop music lies in the way it celebrated simple pleasures and transformed the commonplace into something magical. Even when the subject matter turned dark, a positive vibe would break through the gloom like a rainbow after a thunderstorm. It was something new in mainstream culture, a blend of '50s innocence and naiveté spiked with a healthy dose of '60s idealism, as epitomized by the Utopian anthem I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony). Musically it was likewise a flowering of the previous decades, as funk and disco and soft rock and all sorts of hybrid sounds found voice on 45s, with their bouquet of brightly colored labels. It was the golden age of the single, when the song mattered more than the singer, and what mattered most of all was three minutes of pop bliss.

Starbuck's Moonlight Feels Right, a No. 3 hit in the Year of the Bicentennial, is full of the giddiness that makes 70s music so much fun. The guy's got the convertible top down, his Southern belle (Ole Miss, Class of 74) by his side, and the bay water lapping at the shoreside road—and, naturally, he's got one thing on his mind. "The eastern moon looks ready for a wet kiss to make the tide rise again." If hardly a soul can recall who it was that sang and played in Starbuck, there are legions who can never forget the marimba solo that adds the perfectly loopy touch to one of the all-time make-out classics.

Getting to first base was one thing, but many of the era's hits settled for the bittersweet sadness of longing itself. Keats would have commiserated with these forlorn suitors, serenading their would-be lovers in plaintive tones, usually backed by the gentle strumming of guitars like the troubadours of old. Bread's Baby I'm-a Want You, from 1971, regarded the pain of romantic angst not only as a badge of honor but as the ultimate compliment to one's lady: "You're the only one I cared enough to hurt about." England Dan and John Ford Coley took a different route in I'd Really Love to See You Tonight, with a blunt declaration that a one-night stand could at least temporarily provide some balm to the suffering.

Lobo's I'd Love You to Want Me went the furthest in expressing the thoughts of many a secret admirer. The 1972 hit was originally pitched to the Hollies, but the Brit-beat group of Bus Stop and Carrie-Anne fame objected to the candor of the line, "When you moved your mouth to speak, I felt the blood go to my feet." With the verse intact, the song went to No. 2 for Lobo, born Kent LaVoie, whose first chart success was Me and You and a Dog Named Boo, which featured the name of the singer's German shepherd in the title.

A dog receives a stirring tribute in Shannon, one of the decade's loveliest ballads. Henry Gross composed the song in memory of an Irish setter belonging to Beach Boy Carl Wilson that had been hit by a car. Like the best gospel music, Shannon moves beyond grief to offer solace and hope. Its soaring vocal arrangement paid homage to ethereal Beach Boys-style harmonies, while the lyrics spoke to every listener who had ever lost a beloved pet. Gross's biggest success, it became a top-10 hit in 1976. Gross had begun his career as a founding member of the '50s revival group Sha Na Na, and by the mid-70s the nostalgia craze had become a pop culture phenomenon. The bouncy, cheerful theme song to the hit TV show Happy Days revealed that a post-Watergate America was ready to embrace a romanticized '50s that was more Ozzie & Harriet than Rebel Without a Cause.

With the Vietnam War still raging, a flurry of throwback singles had the effect of comfort food, as in Robert John's faithful cover of the Tokens' 1961 doo-wop hit The Lion Sleeps Tonight, itself a reworking of a popular African song from the '40s. The Four Seasons, still led by the irrepressible Frankie Valli, returned to the top of the charts with December 1963 (Oh, What a Night). Another Golden Oldies vocal act, the Righteous Brothers, eulogized late-'60s fallen icons like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding in Rock and Roll Heaven. Here was yet another uplifting elegy, this one co-written by Alan O'Day, who would garner his own in 1977 with Undercover Angel.

As the rock 'n' roll generation matured into middle age, songs began to address the generation gap from both sides. The parable Cat's in the Cradle, a No. 1 in 1974, A/as inspired by the birth of Harry Chapin's son, an event he didn't attend because he was on tour at the time. The haunting refrain "We'll get together then, son/You know we'll have a good time then" told the story of many workaholic American Fathers with little time for childrearing. Jonathan Edwards' Sunshine (Go Away Today), a fiery folk-rock hit from 1972, spoke for the era's rebellious youth who were anxious to break free from the constraints of the 9-to-5 grind that trapped so many of their parents: "He can't even run his own life/I'll be damned if he'll run mine." And yet the song's hook is so catchy that it seems a sure bet that everything's going to work out in the end.

That bright ray of hope shines out from most 70s pop across every genre and style. It's there in Gallery's heartfelt valentine Nice to Be with You, and War's The Cisco Kid, a funk tour de force which is all about racial pride, and Chicago's Saturday in the Park, that brassy paean to the democratic spirit: "People reaching, people touching/A real celebration." And it's there in the hedonistic dance numbers like (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty, Le Freak and Rock Your Baby, whose universal call to boogie all night was also a reminder that one of the first public places where people began to break through the barriers of segregation was the dance floor.

Even so, amidst the new disco rhythms melody was still king, and it lingered in the sultry jazz strains of Midnight at the Oasis, in the brooding chorus of A Horse with No Name, and especially in the wistful melancholy of Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts. Even if the lyrics often leaned toward the obtuse ("blowing through the jasmine in my mind"), these vignettes seduced listeners into rarified worlds full of the rich imagery of short stories or the cinema.

It was only fitting that as the decade crested, a master of melody and storytelling reappeared on the charts. As leader of the Lovin' Spoonful, John Sebastian Grafted some of the most endearing hits of the '60s, or "hums," as one of the group's album titles so aptly put it. Asked to write the theme to a new TV show about a New Yorker who returns to teach at his old neighborhood school, he responded with Welcome Back, which shot to No. 1 in the spring of 1976. Catching Sebastian's mellow song on the airwaves was like hearing the voice of an old friend.

-EDDIE DEAN

Eddie Dean is a contributing writer for Washington City Paper whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and in the anthology Best Music Writing 2001 (Da Capo Press).