Earth Wind And Fire - september, 1978

"I constantly have people coming up to me and they get so excited to know what the significance was. And there is no significance beyond it just sang better than any of the other dates. So ... sorry!"

Gerry Rafferty - island, 1978

"Setting out in his apocalyptic "Ark," each song radiates the confidence of a master craftsman cruising in his prime, constructing brilliant pop confections with top-flight support while awaiting the crunch of civilization."

Elton John - song for guy, 1978

"As I was writing this song one Sunday, I imagined myself floating into space and looking down at my own body. I was imagining myself dying. Morbidly obsessed with these thoughts, I wrote this song about death. The next day I was told that Guy [Burchett], our 17-year-old messenger boy, had been tragically killed on his motorcycle the day before. Guy died on the day I wrote this song."

Neil Young - comes a time, 1978

"The song "Comes a Time" is one of my all-time favorite recordings because it just has a great feeling. The song and the performance are a total mesh. Nicolette's singing is beautiful. I can see all the pictures. That is as close to a perfect recording as I ever have gotten. Karl Himmel laid down a unique groove on drums, and the band was locked in. Karl has the ability to play two grooves at once, which I have never heard anyone else do as well as he does. He is a completely unique musician."

Genesis - snowbound, 1978

"Typically when we refer to someone as being “snowbound” what we mean is that they’re shut inside their home on account of heavy snows. We conjure up images of warm hearths, hot cocoa, knit sweaters, cozy log cabins. It’s a cause for children to rejoice, as schools are temporarily shut down and they can play to their hearts’ content in the beautiful white canvas of nature."

Genesis - say it's alright joe, 1978

"Say It's Alright Joe", written by Rutherford and the penultimate track recorded for the album, is a torch song about an alcoholic who goes into a drunken stupor. The guitarist intended the track to be a "piss-take on the Dean Martin 'set 'em up Joe' alcoholic style'", but thought it was not going to work until Banks added his keyboard overdubs and the band started mixing the track, at which point it "came to life"

The Motors - airport, 1978

"The Motors' entry in the Encyclopedia of Popular Music notes that "Airport" has become a stock piece of music often accompanying footage of aeroplane or airports. The encyclopedia suggests that the song's popularity did nothing to extend the life of the band, whose membership changed by the end of the year."

Genesis - burning rope, 1978

"While Banks was writing "Burning Rope", he decided to shorten the track rather than stretch its arrangements into an extended piece as he wished to avoid repeating himself and drawing comparisons to his ten-minute "One for the Vine" from Wind & Wuthering. It features a lead guitar solo that Rutherford found was a challenge to produce in the wake of Hackett's departure; he was pleased with the final result and called it his best on the album."

Genesis - follow you follow me, 1978

"Like much of the rest of the album, the slower, sentimental "Follow You Follow Me" was a departure from most of their previous work as a progressive rock band, featuring a simple melody, romantic lyrics and a verse-chorus structure. Although previous albums contained love ballads, such as Selling England by the Pound's "More Fool Me" and "Your Own Special Way" from Wind & Wuthering (1976), "Follow You Follow Me" was the first worldwide pop success by the group. The band felt that their music was attracting mainly male audiences, so this song was written specifically to redress the imbalance."

Neil Young - four strong winds cover, 1978

"The song has a clear Canadian context and subtext, including an explicit mention of the province Alberta as well as references to long, cold winters. In 2005, CBC Radio One listeners chose it as the greatest Canadian song of all time on the program 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version. It is considered the unofficial anthem of Alberta."

Barclay James Harvest - sip of wine, 1978

"Back in 1967 the band was playing rhythm and blues, and was called The Blues Keepers. As they began to write songs and develop an original stayle, they decided that they needed a name change, and that they wanted something flowery, like the West Coast psychedelic bands they admired, e.g. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane etc. Each of them wrote single words on pieces of paper which were drawn out of the hat one by one, and all were rejected until only three were left: James, a guy who used to sign with the band, Harvest because they were living in a farmhouse, and Barclay after the bank, because they aspired to make money! These were then rearranged to get the best-sounding name - Barclay James Harvest."

Genesis - undertow, 1978

"Undertow in unashamedly romantic for the ageing prog rockers and the whole album it was taken from – And then there were three – was generally more accessible to a mass market, including as it did tracks such as the rather lovely ‘Many too Many’ and ‘Follow You Follow Me’."

Boney M - rivers of babylon cover, 1978

"Rivers of Babylon" is a Rastafari song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group The Melodians in 1970. The lyrics are adapted from the texts of Psalms 19 and 137 in the Hebrew Bible. The Melodians' original version of the song appeared on the soundtrack album for the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, which made it internationally known. The song was re-popularized in Europe by the 1978 Boney M. cover version, which was awarded a platinum disc and is one of the top-ten, all-time best-selling singles in the UK. The B-side of the single, "Brown Girl in the Ring", also became a hit."

Sérgio Godinho - o primeiro dia, 1978

"His last albums in the 1970s are Pano-Cru, from 1978, and Campolide, from 1979. In these albums, Godinho starts a transition to less politically-charged lyrics and singing more about everyday life."

Genesis - many too many, 1978

"Many Too Many" was released as a single from the album ...And Then There Were Three... in 1978 and written by the band's keyboardist, Tony Banks, who described it as "a simple love lyric". The single reached No. 43 on the UK Singles Chart, following the band's successful breakthrough into the Top Ten with "Follow You Follow Me". Its B-side had two non-album songs, "Vancouver" and "The Day the Light Went Out", both released on compact disc on the Genesis Archive 2: 1976–1992 box set."

Gerry Rafferty - mattie's rag, 1978

"At the time Rafferty wrote the song, he was travelling regularly between London and Glasgow. As such, he didn't get to spend as much time with his family as he would have liked, especially his daughter Martha. In fact, the name of the song is a shortening of Martha (Mattie) and a style of traditional folk song (a rag). Martha was 9 when the song was written. The lyrics describe Rafferty's joy at seeing his beloved daughter again after a long period of absence. The "magic thing" that he describes is the song itself. "Just wind him up and he'll start to sing" means that she will be able to listen to the song any time she likes. The city described in the song is London. Rafferty was unsure of himself there, but when he got back home to Glasgow and his family, he felt safe and relaxed, hence the lyric "you make me see the light".

Gerry Rafferty - baker street, 1978

"Rafferty's daughter Martha suggested in 2012 that he could also have taken inspiration from a book he was reading while travelling, Colin Wilson's The Outsider (1956), which explores ideas of alienation and creativity and a longing to be connected."

Genesis - the lady lies, 1978

"The Lady Lies" is the tenth track on the Genesis 1978 album …And Then There Were Three…, with music and lyrics written by Tony Banks. The lyrics tell the story of a man who rescues a woman from the mouth of a monster, but is later seduced by the woman, or as the band refer to her during the song, a demon, and led into an unknown fate."

Gerry Rafferty - right down the line, 1978

"Rafferty grew up in a council house in the town's Ferguslie Park, in Underwood Lane, and was educated at St Mirin's Academy. His Irish-born father, an alcoholic, was a miner and lorry driver who died when Rafferty was 16. Rafferty learned both Irish and Scottish folk songs as a boy. He recalled, "My father was Irish, so growing up in Paisley I was hearing all these songs when I was two or three. Songs like 'She Moves Through the Fair', which my mother sings beautifully. And a whole suite of Irish traditional songs and Scots traditional songs". Heavily influenced by folk music and the music of the Beatles and Bob Dylan, Rafferty started to write his own material."

Lee Scratch Perry - dyon anaswa, 1978

"Lee "Scratch Perry" was never quite one of us mortals. Every word that came from his mouth was a spiritual or linguistic riddle or game and you’d be hard pressed to find any human being on the face of the earth who dressed more outlandishly cool for so long. When I first discovered his music I’d try to turn all my friends onto him by saying something trite like, “he’s the Sun Ra of reggae” or some such stuff."