With The Wonder Years last night provoking memories of Nixon/McGovern and the news about the Athlete kidnap plot reviving memories of my Olympic Games theme from 1972, I thought I'd start a thread for all you oldies visiting the board - what are your memories of 1972?

It was a great year for me. Loads of hits, UK Records starting...

Loop di Love by Shag; Hooked On A Feeling hanging over from 1971, Flirt (Top 20), 10cc, Terry Dactyl and Seaside Shuffle, Rocky Horror... Roy C Shotgun Wedding... so many hits, so little time...

I must say , I had no idea that Roy C was one of yours, when I got secretly married once before(!) I opened the show with a cover of it the next day!

1972 for me was the year that I finally got to hear acts on the radio that I had only read about in the NME or Melody Maker before due to a sudden rush of what turned out to be classic rock singles.

There was Schools Out, All the Young Dudes, the brilliant Nazareth, so many brilliant records.
1971 promised and 1972 delivered for me.
And , I seem to recall the amazing news at the time that Slade had gone straight in at number 1!
It just was not supposed to happen in those days.
We all had a flex-disc of one of their tunes which came with one of the mags.(was it The Whole Worlds Going Crazee? I know I understood the spelling for once..)
Oh and "Horse With No Name". Such a beautiful song.

My brother used to drive me mad with a cassette he had made of Jona Lewie`s tune.
It was also the year of course in which we would tape things from the radio .
The Radio 1 club was on and I had a frustrating copy of Albert Hammonds hit in which the wind had apparently blown the turntable arm from the disc.

Al that and Bowie landed from Mars...!

Well, 1972 has special significance for me since it was the year I was born. I have over the years collected whatever music and videos I can find from that year to get the general feeling of what things were like and musically, a good year.

"Schools Out" was number one when I was born and Hawkwind's immortal "Silver Machine" was in the top 5 at the time with Roxy Music's "Virginia Plain" being released round that time. That TOTP performance made a huge impact on my parents and I remember JK featuring it in one episode of "No Limits". So with three all time fave records being out when I was born I think I was born at a time when there was still good taste!

Sadly on the "Top Of The Pops" front, 1972 is the worst represented year of the 70s in the BBC archive with just three complete shows. One from June hosted by Ed Stewart is very patchy - great records by Argent and The Move but a truly wretched one by Dana called "Crossword Puzzle" that deservedly sank without trace! The second from November is in black and white and again, a patchy affair but the surviving Christmas show hosted by Tony Blackburn and Noel Edmonds wearing a bright green kaftan (I kid you not) is great fun.

The performance that always gets me is Lieutenant Pigeon's "Mouldy Old Dough". It took several months to get to number one and as I was watching it the other night I thought to myself that it must be one of the most peculiar number one records ever... would such a record get to number one these days?

I bought the follow up to "Silver Machine" which was called "Urban Guerilla" which seemed controversial at the time, I sold it the following year to a dj for quite a lot of money as he couldn`t get hold of a copy.

1972 was the year I started secondary school. It enlarged my world and opened up new horizons. Some of the songs I remember from that year were 'Son Of My Father' by Chicory Tip, 'Sylvia's Mother' by Dr Hook & The Medicine Show, 'Crazy Horses' by The Osmonds, 'American Pie' by Don McClean and 'Take Me Back 'Ome' by Slade.

The New Seekers represented the UK at Eurovision with 'Beg Steal or Borrow'.

Twas a great year.

the Rocky Horror Show is definitely a milestone in my life-I had never seen anything like it and it's still going somewhere in the world after all these years. Oh to have written a musical like that with royalties flowing in forever !

Living in Notting Hill when it was still fun and the Kings Road just before the punks were about to burst forth..

downside..owning cars that never started in winter

Actually (it's all a blur at my age) Rocky was 1973.

I allways thought it was rather cheeky of the Osmonds suddenly turning out a rock anthem! "Puppy Love" it was not!

In a recent interview one of the Osmond brothers said that they'd always wanted to be a more serious rock band, but their parents wouldn't allow it.

Admittedly they probably wouldn't have made as much money, although from what I hear they were robbed of most of their fortune by bad managers, like so many others.

Mart wrote:
I allways thought it was rather cheeky of the Osmonds suddenly turning out a rock anthem! "Puppy Love" it was not!

Very true, oh the pain of actually liking an Osmand's track

JC wrote:
although from what I hear they were robbed of most of their fortune by bad managers, like so many others.

The Osmonds made alot of bad business decisions - like setting up their own TV studio complex etc.
Don't forget the Mormon Church also took 10% !

I wasn't yet born (or defrosted as some people seem to think). Looking at it from a retrospective point of view it was the birth of the best small label ever, UK records. So many hits, even more than Decca that year !