5 One-Hit Wonder Love Songs From The '70s We're Still Head Over Heels For

The '70s were a rich era for one-hit wonders who deserved more than just 15 minutes of fame, and love songs were a particularly popular format for plying their talents. We're such fans of one-hit wonder love songs from that decade, we compiled this short list of songs that have stood the test of time. It wasn't difficult to find a quintet that has kept us beguiled so many years later.

The acts that gave us these songs seemed poised for much more promising careers than they ended up having, especially based on the searing success their romantic, heartbreaking, and sometimes highly-danceable singles generated. Unfortunately, they fizzled after ignition, spending the rest of their musical lives trying to recapture the spark but coming up short.

We chose tunes that represent the spectrum of amorous happenings, everything from accidentally falling in love to compromising a perfectly functional relationship to admitting just how much pain love can cause. It's a spectral display of musical adoration that we find eternally appealing, and we're pretty sure we're not alone in that.

If you're going to be a one-hit wonder in any era, having Stevie Nicks help you out with backing vocals is a great way to do it. And if the song was inspired by your crush on her? Well, it doesn't get much better than that ... unless you can get Lindsey Buckingham to help produce it. 

Even without the Fleetwood Mac fanciness, Walter Egan's bluesy shuffle "Magnet and Steel" stands on its own two feet as an uber-catchy sing-along tune. It has groove for days and a clever metaphorical hook that makes attraction sound like a simple matter of material physics. You can hear Nicks' inimitable husky tones adding texture to the pre-chorus "ooo-ooo" vocalizations and chorus harmonies. Egan was lucky enough to be connected with Buckingham and Richard Dashut as co-producers for his album, which meant a Stevie Nicks vocal bonus. But even without that flourish, this gem would be a '70s sensation worth holding onto.

While Egan's one-hit wonder status didn't exactly make him rich, "Magnet and Steel" did give him a top 10 hit, hovering at No. 8 in 1978, and it's a favorite. We could live on the hypnotic vibe of this guitar-driven jewel forever.

Another love song set to an easy-going shuffle beat (there was a real run on them in the '70s, apparently), "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" by Elvin Bishop feels like a barroom confession by a lounge lothario spilling his heart out about his scattered love life. Who doesn't love a song where true feelings upend someone's carefree romantic entanglements and opens their eyes to what true love really is? 

If the voice on this one sounds familiar, it may be because it belongs to Mickey Thomas, who went on to share lead vocals with Grace Slick in Jefferson Starship. Bishop asked him to sing the track after determining his own vocals weren't the right fit for the recording. Singing a love song as sincere and convincing as "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" can almost make us forgive Thomas for also singing on Starship's undeserved No. 1 hit "We Built This City," a song that helped '80s rock fizzle out completely. 

The song struck a chord and went all the way to No. 3 in 1976, making it the only top 10 hit Elvin Bishop ever achieved. But when you listen to it now, the lived-in feeling of finally falling in love after a long and emotionally draining search rings as true as the first time it hit the turntable. 

It's hard to listen to "Precious and Few" by one-hit wonder band Climax (not to be confused with Climax Blues Band) without feeling sentimental. It's a proudly earnest softball of an easy listening song that lays the saccharine pretty thick. It was a song people slow-danced to during their high school proms and weddings — a backdrop for the most memorable tender moments in life. You'd need a heart of stone not to catch big feelings listening to it in any era.

What makes us adore such a slurpy ballad from a band that made one album before vanishing completely? The florid melody is a huge part of it, half-crooned and half-wailed by love-wounded lead singer Sonny Geraci. The guileless plea in the lyrics is a highlight as well, even if it's as cheesy as a slice of NYC pizza. A couplet like "Baby, it's you on my mind, your love is so rare / Being with you is a feeling I just can't compare" seems pulled straight from a high school love note.

Folded together into a singular '70s soft rock extravaganza, they became the only hit Climax ever released, maxing out at No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1972. Maybe the band's subsequent disappearance is part of the allure here, the romance of their one smash single creating peak mystique we can't get past. But it's also just a great love song.

The jaunty percussion and joyful energy of The Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat" was a groovy precursor to what would become the standard disco sound, complete with jazzy-snazzy horns and a danceable beat that wouldn't quit. It was like a ray of sunshine bursting through the clouds and casting a spotlight on the dance floor. And the story it told with lyrics that likened a successful love connection to a cruise ship headed for stormy seas was catchy and clever enough to capture hearts a-plenty when it sailed onto the scene in 1974.

There's no complex idea being sold in all the fun nautical imagery, though. This particular relationship has been going along swimmingly until someone decided to alter course. The only thing singer Fleming Williams is interested in finding out is "where you got the notion / to rock the boat." Few love song lead-ups have ever resulted in such a rollicking payoff, ensuring listeners would have no choice but to chime in on the "Rock the boat / Don't rock the boat, baby / Rock the boat / Don't tip the boat over" call-and-response chorus.

"Rock the Boat" sailed up to No. 1 in July 1974, and though The Hues Corporation released a few more albums through the '70s, the band never had another top 10 single. But with an energetic joy fest like this capping off their career, one was all they really needed. 

The painful underbelly of love makes for a one-hit wonder from Nazareth in the form of their rocking 1975 song, "Love Hurts." The straightforward message of the title is explored in detail in the rest of the lyrics: If you're going to reach into the fires of love, expect to get singed. It's pretty angsty stuff, but we ate it up when it was a radio staple, and we appreciate it just as much today. Love does hurt, but this song makes it a little more bearable. 

This Scottish hard rock unit enjoyed greater success across the pond than they did in the U.S. But "Love Hurts" left such an indelible impression, breaking the top ten to land at No. 8 in 1975. It's worth noting that the track wasn't an original Nazareth composition, but a cover of a 1960 song by The Everly Brothers, given a gleaming edge with the help of a crunchy hard-rock arrangement and searing vocals from lead singer Dan McCafferty. His gritty voice is arguably better suited to portray the anguish of love than either of the Everly Brothers' golden yet flavorless harmonies on their version. Though there were plenty of Nazareth albums to follow, there was never another memorable love song that reached the same heights.