75: Dan Fogelberg, "Part of the Plan"

By Wm. on March 31, 2026

After I began my weekly habit of writing down the songs Casey was playing, in June 1976, I couldn't help but notice certain "rules" that might indicate when a tune had reached its peak (besides #1, duh). The biggest clue, of course, was maintaining the same position as the previous week, but I quickly learned that one- or two-spot advances, particularly outside the top 10, could easily lead to slides down the chart. I can't recall a single instance during my charting years of 6/76-10/82 (outside of one-week runs on the show at #38) when a rise of three or more notches immediately preceded a reversal in fortune, though.

Listening to earlier shows over the past decade-plus has made me realize it wasn't always that way. This month I've heard a couple of songs on AT40 70s rebroadcasts that would fall off the show after a four-spot leap, and I thought it might be fun to dig in and look for all the times that something of that sort had happened between the show's debut and the week I began charting. Painstaking research via the Ultimate Music Database over these past few days has led a list of twenty-two songs that jumped at least four positions within the Top 40 to their peak and then fell from that spot the following week. I'm including date of the peak, the leap to it, and the immediate aftermath. There's been a good-faith effort made to identify them all, but errors of omission are certainly possible. This may be my playlist for today, as several are unfamiliar.

8/8/70: The Three Degrees, "Maybe" Went 35 -29, fell to 40
10/2/71: War, "All Day Music" 39-35-42
1/1/72: Mickey Newbury, "An American Trilogy" 30-26-28
7/7/73: O'Jays, "Time to Get Down" 40-33-60
9/8/73: Tyrone Davis, "There It Is" 38-32-41
11/24/73: The Four Tops, "Sweet Understanding Love" 38-33-40
1/12/74: Paul Simon, "American Tune" 39-35-37
1/19/74: Merle Haggard, "If We Make It to December" 32-28-41
3/2/74: Dickie Goodman, "Energy Crisis '74" 40-33-35
3/2/74: Wednesday, "Last Kiss" 38-34-38
3/23/74: Harry Chapin, "W.O.L.D." 40-36-48
5/11/74: James Brown, "The Payback" 30-26-28
6/8/74: The Doobie Brothers, "Another Park, Another Sunday" 36-32-41
6/29/74: Cher, "Train of Thought" 31-27-31
8/3/74: Elvis Presley, "If You Talk in Your Sleep" 21-17-34
9/7/74: Tower of Power, "Don't Change Horses" 31-26-35
9/28/74: James Brown, "Papa Don't Take No Mess" 38-31-44
12/7/74: Shirley Brown, "Woman to Woman" 26-22-33
1/4/75: Billy 'Crash' Craddock, "Ruby Baby" 37-33-41
3/15/75: Dan Fogelberg, "Part of the Plan" 35-31-45
11/15/75: Joan Baez, "Diamonds and Rust" 40-35-54
5/29/76: Johnny Cash, "One Piece at a Time" 33-29-55

Plenty of big names here, though obviously with lesser hits–only twice are peaks in the top 25. The bottom line is that the change in chart methodology Billboard instituted in June of '73 made such occurrences much more likely, at least for 18 months or so. I've been aware of the Chapin, Fogelberg, and Cash songs doing this for a while now but was surprised to learn how many other times it happened, given that the spigot completely shut off literally as I started keeping records. (Maybe I'll do an 80s exploration someday, as such advances and retreats started up again around '85 or so.) More meaningless trivia, I know, but taking note of the changes over time in chart behavior does fascinate me.

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Dan Fogelberg made rebroadcast appearances on three consecutive weekends this month. On 3/3/84, Casey spun his final Top 40 hit, "The Language of Love." On this post's featured show, he was at that peak of #31 with his first appearance on AT40. Finally, last weekend's 3/22/80 rebroadcast included "Longer," his biggest hit. Fogelberg has also showed up in a couple of Stereo Review posts, including a take on The Innocent Age in last month's look at the February 1982 issue. Noel Coppage hit on something in that review, Fogelberg's tendency toward abstraction in his lyrics. You hear that in songs like "Hard to Say" (which I like) and "Make Love Stay" (which I find tedious), though I'll always give him full marks for the tooth/eye/truth/lie parallels in "The Language of Love."

"Part of the Plan" is chock-full-of-words, for sure, but it's a fine, fine piece for a 23-year-old at the outset of a career. I don't recall hearing it until several years after it was a hit; maybe if a bunch of stations (including, for instance, my hometown WSAI) had picked it up that late winter/early spring, it wouldn't have taken that dive after moving up four spots on 3/15/75.