Sorry, But You Can't Convince Us That This Smash '70s Hit Isn't Actually Trash

What do you get when you blend one-part weird yachting cap and one-part "Who did that to her hair??" pageboy cut with two-parts vomitously twee piano bopper and drown the whole thing in glugs of embarrassment sauce? You get the singular greatest trashterpiece of 1975, "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain and Tennille, which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. How did this grandest of human errors occur? There's lots of reasons, including that reliable stand-by explanation, "You had to be there, man."

Indeed, some people were there, and some of them really love this song. Anecdotal testimonials glimpsed under the song's official music video assert things like, "A great year for music," as do less-than-compelling Reddit arguments like, "Awesome song." But hear us out: No. Captain and Tenerife's "Love Will Keep Us Together" oozes hokeyness in its donk-donk keyboard tone and saccharine positivity. It's there in the smothering cheesiness of generic lyrics that sound lifted from a grab bag of discarded Hallmark cards: "Just stop / 'Cause I really love you/ Stop, I'll be thinking of you / Look in my heart / And let love keep us together." Please, please bring the authenticity, people, darkness included.

Ultimately, Captain and Tinnitus' version of "Love Will Keep Us Together" seems forced and silly and unaware of either. And we say their "version" because the original 1973 song by Neil Sedaka is actually less cloying and hard to swallow. But his version went nowhere, and Captain and Tennis Elbow redid it for their 1975 debut album of the same name, "Love Will Keep Us Together." There are reasons for the song's success, though, largely related to mid-'70s cultural tenor and Sedaka's original songwriting.

In reaching year-end No. 1 status on the Billboard Hot 100, Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" (1975) joined songs like "Every Breath You Take" by the Police (1983), "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston (1992; a Dolly Parton cover), and "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele (2011). It also joined songs like "Macarena" by Los Del Río (1996), "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter (2006), and "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas (2009). Some of these songs are undeniably deserving of their place in the sun, while others were and continue to be garbage. We'll let you figure out which is which. In other words, while the No. 1 song of each year certainly mirrors its time, it's not a guarantee of any kind of inherent songwriting quality or lasting meaning. It's just a matter of catching the wave of the zeitgeist. 

On that note, 1975 is the year that the Vietnam War ended. The war played a huge role in giving rise to the 1960s counterculture movement, which arguably peaked with 1969's chaotic Woodstock concert before petering off in the mid-'70s. The highest-selling music of the '70s, on a whole, was rock built on the back of '60s counterculture rock, including Pink Floyd, Eagles, Meat Loaf, and Led Zeppelin. But, precisely zero of those artists claimed the year-end No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a given year. Top songs of the '70s were largely middle-of-the-road, inoffensive adult contemporary tunes belonging to the likes of Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, and Roberta Flack. In this way, "Love Will Keep Us Together" fit squarely into the ranks of its peers and has little to offer divorced from its time.

Captain and Tennille, the name of husband-and-wife musical duo Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille, certainly had enough experience to wrap their heads around songwriting. Dragon was a keyboardist and backup singer for the Beach Boys, whose influence is all over Captain and Tennille's debut album, right down to its cover of "God Only Knows." Tennille worked with Elton John as a backup singer. When it came time to craft their own debut album, they found themselves one song shy. Enter "Love Will Keep Us Together," an A&R label recommendation that Captain and Tennille re-instrumentalized into its final form.

Speaking of that form, it's the schmaltz that's the problem, not the song structure. The core chord progression underlying Neil Sedaka's original 1973 song — I-V-vi-IV — is so tried-and-true that it's been employed by dozens of artists over the decades, like Elton John, U2, Lady Gaga, John Denver, Bob Marley, The Beatles, Green Day, Bon Jovi, Beyonce, and many, many more. Just think of "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey and you'll get the general idea. But with Captain and Tennille at the helm, "Love Will Keep Us Together" gets wrapped in so much contrived window dressing, from the bouncy keyboard licks we described earlier to the obligatory background singers and strained smiles. But yes, Sedaka's original lyrics were always hokey, no matter how sincere their intent.

And while it's not necessary for musicians to live what they write, "Love Will Keep Us Together" comes across as even more shallow when you learn that Captain and Tennille's happy couple image was feigned. They married for tax reasons and lived unhappily together for 39 years before divorcing in 2014. Maybe this why their music feels so ultimately empty.