5 Songs From The '70s Everyone Forgot Until TV Shows Made Them Hits Again

There are certain songs associated with the 1970s that received their largest audience more recently, because they were featured on TV. Some hits from the '70s never really went away, streamed and broadcast daily and recognized as foundational classic rock tracks. Others emerged during that decade, and they might have been decent-sized hits or standout deep cuts on well-received albums, but over the years, they retreated into the recesses of pop culture. But then along came their heroes: TV soundtrack supervisors needing the perfect song to set a mood.

In the 2000s and beyond, quite a few songs from the 1970s were discovered and appreciated by a whole new audience. After being employed to help sell a crucial moment of plot, character development, or comedy, these almost-forgotten tracks became modern hits in a unique and roundabout way. Here are five '70s songs the world left behind until an influential TV series brought them back from the dead.

More soulful and jammy and less witty and jazzy than the songs Steely Dan churned out later in the 1970s, "Dirty Work" was one of the first songs ever released by the band led by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. A track from their first album, "Can't Buy a Thrill," "Dirty Work" wasn't widely issued as a single, released as a 45 only in the Netherlands.

About 30 years after its release, "Dirty Work" started to show up on TV shows, significantly raising its profile. Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) sings along to the song from a car radio in a 2001 episode of "The Sopranos" that also included a banger mashup of the Police's "Every Breath You Take," and it was twice showcased on "The Simpsons." In 2016, Homer Simpson belted out a variation of the song over a montage of himself outsourcing his chores to hired labor, and six years later, the true version of "Dirty Work" was used. Most prominently, the Steely Dan album cut soundtracked the opening scene of the Season 2 premiere of HBO's teen drama "Euphoria" in 2022. All of that has helped make "Dirty Work" the second-most-streamed Steely Dan song on Spotify, trailing only fellow "Can't Buy a Thrill" track and No. 6 hit, "Do It Again."

"I Was Made for Lovin' You" was one of Kiss' biggest hits ever, out-charted only by "Beth," "Detroit Rock City," and "Forever," peaking at No. 11 in the summer of 1979. But "I Was Made for Lovin' You" was also extremely of its time. Part of the messed-up reality of Kiss, it was a trend-chasing attempt by the otherwise hard-rocking Kiss to participate in the disco phenomenon. When the popularity of disco started to fade right around the time of the single's release, "I Was Made for Lovin' You" grew passé.

But the jittery, charged-up, and innovative blend of rock, pop, and dance music found new life in the summer of 2020. After Netflix dropped the second season of the superhero show "The Umbrella Academy" in July, many of the songs used in the show saw huge gains on streaming services and in downloads. An action-packed montage sequence in Episode 4 utilized "I Was Made for Lovin' You," and the track zoomed to No. 1 on The Hollywood Reporter's Top TV Songs chart. Over the span of one month, "I Was Made for Lovin' You" was queued up on streaming services 4.3 million times, and it was digitally purchased 4,000 times.

Few singers have ever sung with as much heart and passion as Linda Ronstadt. A genre-hopping superstar who dabbled in pop, rock, and country, Ronstadt landed 12 Top 40 singles in the 1970s, and the very first one was "Long, Long Time." A moderate, No. 25 hit in late 1970, it's a devastating ballad about a painfully one-sided love.

In January 2023, "Long, Long Time" appeared in a poignant episode of HBO's post-apocalyptic survival saga "The Last of Us." Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) find a Ronstadt sheet music book at a piano, and they sing the heartbreakingly appropriate song together. In the same installment, the Ronstadt version plays on a truck radio. "I knew that song needed to hit certain things about longing and aching and endlessly unrequited love," producer and director Craig Mazin told Variety about why he selected "Long, Long Time." In the hour after HBO broadcast the tragic, Emmy-winning episode also titled "Long, Long Time," streams of the song exploded by 4,900% on Spotify.

Before they became best known for the dour 1978 top 10 hit "Dust in the Wind," Kansas got poetic and uptempo with the 1976 single "Carry On Wayward Son." That riff-driven arena rock number made it as far as No. 11 in 1977, but it was ultimately overshadowed in the realm of classic rock radio by the affecting and moody "Dust in the Wind."

What most fans may not know about Kansas is that in the 2000s, "Carry On Wayward Son" had the good fortune to be embraced by "Supernatural," one of the most beloved cult TV shows of the era. A fantasy-drama about a couple of brothers, or wayward sons, chasing down horrific beasts, the show featured "Carry On Wayward Son" in nearly every season finale of its 15-year run. Usually, it was a sync of the Kansas recording; on the 2020 series finale, conspicuously titled "Carry On," a dramatic cover by Neoni materialized. As of 2026, "Carry On Wayward Son" has amassed about 950 million total listens just on Spotify.

Part of the joke behind one of the most famous "Saturday Night Live" sketches of all time was that it centered on a largely overlooked '70s band. By the time "More Cowbell" aired as part of the April 8, 2000, episode of "SNL," VH1's melodramatic music documentary series "Behind the Music" was an institution. The sketch was a mock-clip from a fictional episode centered on Blue Öyster Cult, a band that only ever scored two Top 40 hits, including 1976's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." It's known for its creepy vibes and lyrics about the approach of death as well as the pervasive use of a cowbell. The sketch focuses on that aspect, with "SNL" cast member Will Ferrell playing Gene Frenkle, the not-real, seldom-utilized cowbell player for Blue Öyster Cult finally getting his chance to shine as they record "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." Fictional producer Bruce Dickinson (host Christopher Walken) keeps demanding "more cowbell."

The sketch reminded the general public not only of the existence of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," but how it was almost inexplicably dominated by cowbell. In the 21st century, listeners embraced the song as never before. Only a No. 12 hit back in 1976, the single was eventually certified for sales of 6 million copies by the Recording Industry Association of America, and it's been played on Spotify more than 740 million times.