Longer

1979

Dan Fogelberg

Same Old Lang Syne, of course, wasn't Dan Fogelberg's only hit, by far. He actually cracked the top 10 4 times in the late 70s and early 8os. His biggest hit, 'Longer', was also the one that, as he jokes in the liner notes to one of his retrospective albums, put him in the elevators, meaning it signaled his transition from more Rock based songs to the easy listening music he's best known for.

And if you were around in late '79, and early '80, that uber-mellow guitar and horn intro is as familiar to you as your front yard, because it was all over the radio during that era. The song and it's theme were both pretty simple...a guy telling his true love just exactly how much he loved her by comparing their love to rock-solid objects of beauty in nature. The song was haunting and lovely, and struck a chord with the record buying Seventies Kids that we were at the time.

Dan came up with the song...or rather it came to him...during vacation in Hawaii, while he was chilling out in a hammock in Maui and looking up at the stars. The lyrics just started popping (As he put it, this song just seemed to be flying around the heavens just looking for a good home.). It found one...he polished the lyrics, set them to music, and made a classic.

Longer was released just about exactly a year before his beloved Christmas classic, 'Same Old Lang Syne', and just about perfectly twinned that song's chart run. 'Longer' was released on December 15th of 79, peaked at #2 on the Hot 100 exactly three months later on March 15^th of '80, and hung around the charts for 22 weeks, the longest chart run of any of his 4 biggest hits. It also hung on to the the runner-up slot for two weeks, and the two songs that kept it out of the #1 spot were both about as opposite to 'Longer' in style as you can get. Crazy Little Thing Called Love, by Pink Floyd, beat it out the first week, and the second week it was crowded out of the Top Spot by Queen's Another Brick In The Wall.

'Longer' did even better on the Adult Contemporary Chart, snagging the #1 spot and hanging on to it for five weeks. The song's timeless. There will always be couples in love, and they will always be trying to vocalize their love for each other. 'Longer' puts that love to words about as well as it's ever been done. That's what pushed it to #2, made it a classic, and keeps it on Oldies Station play-lists to this very day. And I have a sneakin' suspicion that our kids'll continue to hear it for decades to come!

So Enjoy! 'Longer' by Dan Fogelberg