My 100 Favorite Charted Pop Songs: My Little Town

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Along with my 100 favorite country songs to have charted, I’m listing my 100 favorite songs that made the Billboard Hot 100 charts through the history of that chart (which began in 1955…which is why there are songs from the 40s on the country list but not the pop list). Here’s a rarity on the list, in that it appeared on two different albums. My Little Town - Simon & Garfunkel To hear Paul Simon tell it these days, he’s always considered Art Garfunkel a hemorrhoid. But if you go back and read about this song’s origins, Simon said at the time that he wrote it with Garfunkel in mind to record it. Art had been doing a “day job” (he has a master’s degree in mathematics, if you didn’t know [he has it if you did know, too ]), and in 1974 he decided to get back into music. While he was recording the album that became Breakaway, Simon, who’d continued recording after the duo split, was preparing for his classic album Still Crazy After All These Years. Since they were both on Columbia Records, there was no problem in them recording this song together and releasing it as a single…AND on each individual solo album. This song resonated with me because I was living in a “nothing but the dead and dying” town on the west coast of Florida, in a private “Christian” school, when this came out. But anyone who’s lived in a small town and hated it knows the desire to leave that behind. (And, in the ultimate irony, like Elton John in “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” we later long to trade the “dogs of society” for the quietness of the town we once poo-pooed.) What a wonderful song. My Little Town Written by Paul Simon Recorded by Simon & Garfunkel From Still Crazy After All These Years (Simon) and Breakaway (Garfunkel), 1975 Peak chart position: #9 Today’s country song: “(Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely” I pledge allegiance to the wall: