The.best.singles.of.all.time.60s.70s.80s.90s.no1s.1999 ◆

“A long, long time ago…” The diner seemed to stretch, the booths filling with ghosts in bell-bottoms. Eight minutes and thirty-four seconds of folk-rock eulogy. Leo had been drafted by then—not for Vietnam, but into a desk job in Omaha. This song made him weep in his Plymouth Duster. It was about the day the music died, but also about everything he’d missed: Woodstock, the freedom, the sad, beautiful crash of the Sixties dream. He watched the snow fall outside the window and sang under his breath: “This’ll be the day that I die.” But he didn’t die. He just got older.

A Latin guitar lick, a shuffling beat, and a voice that oozed summer heat. “Man, it’s a hot one…” The.best.singles.of.all.time.60s.70s.80s.90s.no1s.1999

December 31, 1999. Billboard’s final #1 of the millennium. A song that mashed up Carlos Santana—a relic from Woodstock, Leo’s lost youth—with a new voice from Matchbox Twenty. It was a bridge. Old and new. Spanish guitar and rock radio. The world was about to click over to 2000, terrified of computer crashes and the unknown. But Leo just swayed. “Smooth” was velvet and fire. It was the last perfect single of a century that had given him love, loss, war, peace, and a jukebox full of memories. “A long, long time ago…” The diner seemed

The song faded. The diner was silent.

The clock read 11:58 PM. Leo had one song left. This song made him weep in his Plymouth Duster

The song ended. He punched . The 1970s: “American Pie” – Don McLean

Leo poured himself one last stale coffee, raised the chipped mug to the empty room, and whispered, “Best of all time.”