I miss the days when VH1 showed “Midnight Special” and “American Bandstand” reruns and shows like “Eight-Track Flashback.” The moment for two-decades-later ’70s nostalgia passed, obviously, but I still wish VH1 hadn’t turned into the Celebrity Gossip and Catty Comments Channel.

That made me laugh, Jason, but you’d better hope Ray Stark is dead, or else you will be soon, sir! I read a book last year about Peter Guber and Jon Peters’s brief reign as the heads of Sony Pictures in the early ’90s (the book is “Hit and Run” by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters, and it’s a great read if you like stories about Hollywood excess). Anyway, there were stories about Ray Stark and the power he had to destroy careers in the ’60s and ’70s if he so desired. Even in the early ’90s the guy still had considerable power in Hollywood, I believe, even though he wasn’t producing that many movies anymore.

I never noticed that spaceship noise at 1:24 in “Goodbye Girl” before now. May I assign you more research for songs that I love, Jason? Thanks for all the new information about this one. Gates probably does cut “Goodbye Girl” a little short, but better to quit while you’re ahead, I say. However, I’m interested in hearing the 12″ version that you and Dave P are going to create.

Is “I Love a Rainy Night” really all that mellow? Maybe so. It’s one of my favorites from the period of time when I was first discovering and remembering the pop songs I was hearing on the radio. Country really did have a big surge on the pop charts in early 1981. Did “Take This Job and Shove It” make it into the Top 40? And I guess Juice Newton’s “Queen of Hearts” counts as well. Kenny Rogers was also a crossover monster during that time.