Poco “Crazy Love” topped the adult contemporary chart

Crazy Love Poco

Writer(s): Rusty Young (see lyrics here) First Charted: January 12, 1979 Peak: 17 US, 14 CB, 10 GR, 20 HR, 7 RR, 17 AC, 6 CL, 15 CN, 73 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 5.4 video, 21.45 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The country-rock group Poco was formed in 1968 by former Buffalo Springfield members Richie Furay (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Jim Messina (guitar) with Rusty Young (steel pedal guitar), Randy Meisner (bass and vocals), George Grantham (drums and vocals). A decade later, Young was the only remaining member. The band now featured Paul Cotton (guitar), Charlie Harrison (bass), and Steve Chapman (drums) for the group’s 1978 Legend album. The album was the eleventh from the group, but the first to give them any kind of mainstream success. They’d previously peaked at #38 on the album chart; Legend got to #14 and gave the group its first gold album and first taste of top-40 singles success with “Crazy Love” (#17) and “Heart of the Night” (#20). “Crazy Love” might have done better if it weren’t for a label change as the song was climbing the charts. MCA took over ABC Records and was not interested in Poco. The song still ended up as Poco’s biggest hit on the pop charts and spent seven weeks atop adult contemporary, ranking as the #1 adult contemporary hit for 1979. WK The song is marked by its harmony vocals and lyrics about “being haunted by the memory of an old lover.” GS It was Young who wrote “Crazy Love,” the breakthrough hit for the band. He said he was panelling a wall at his house in L.A. when the chorus came to him. He took about thirty minutes to write the song. He intended the “ooh, ooh, ahhhh” part of the chorus to be filled in with other lyrics later but the band liked it the way it was. WK Young considered it ironic that he wrote the band’s first real hit since he’d started out just as an instrumentalist with the band and didn’t sing or write. WK Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Poco GS TheGreatestSongs.com “Top 500 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time: #485 Crazy Love – Poco” WK Wikipedia First posted 12/6/2022.