3 of the Best Last No. 1 Hits of 70s Classic Rock

It’s often the last No. 1 hits that are forgotten about. From The Rolling Stones to The Eagles, here are some of 70s classic rock’s best final No. 1 hits.

“Miss You” by The Rolling Stones

“Miss You” is a heavily disco-influenced rock track and is also The Rolling Stones’ last No. 1.

“A lot of those songs like ‘Miss You’ were heavily influenced by going to the discos,” drummer Charlie Watts shared of this song. “You can hear it in a lot of those four on the floor rhythms and the Philadelphia-style drumming. Mick and I used to go to discos a lot… It was a great period. I remember being in Munich and coming back from a club with Mick singing one of the Village People songs—’Y.M.C.A.’, I think it was—and Keith went mad, but it sounded great on the dance floor.” 

“What A Fool Believes” by The Doobie Brothers

“What A Fool Believes” was this group’s second and last No. 1 hit. The Doobie Brothers received Grammy Awards in 1980 for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year for this song. Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald wrote this one.

“Kenny Loggins and I had been chatting about getting together to write some songs,” McDonald told The Guardian. “He came over to my house in LA just as I was playing what I had for ‘What a Fool Believes’. He said, ‘You were just playing something at the piano. Is that new? That’s what I want to work on first.’ He had already come up with the song’s hook line—’She had a place in his life’—before he’d got through the door.”

“Heartache Tonight” by The Eagles

Released as a single for The Long Run, this song came out in September of 1979 and went No. 1 in November of that same year. As explained by Bob Seger, “Heartache Tonight” came out of a jam session between him and Glenn Frey.

“Heartache Tonight started with me and Glenn at his house,” Seger told Ken Sharp. “I was playing bass and he was playing guitar. He had this little thing: “Somebody’s gonna hurt somebody.” He wanted to write a shuffle. So we’re playing that groove, and Glenn’s singing the verses, and suddenly, out of the blue, the chorus came into my head. ‘There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, heartache tonight, I know.’ I started singing that and Glenn goes: ‘Yeah!’”

Photo by: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns

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