Back in the 80s, a great friend of mine and I were hanging out and chatting in the front room of his parents’ house in Havertown, PA.[1] At one point, he walked over to the piano and said something like, “You know popular music. What song is this?”
He then played two A major chords, four D major chords (root note A), three A major chords, five D major chords (root note A), three G major chords, five A7 chords (no A, root note G), then repeated the G – A7 sequence.
It sounded very familiar, but it took me a few moments to place it.
“Oh, that is the opening to ‘Give a Little Bit’ by Supertramp.”
The first track on their 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments…, this pop rock gem reached #15 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was Supertramp’s first single to reach the top 20 in the United States, and only their second to reach the top 100, following the top 40 “Bloody Well Right,” which charted as the B-side of “Dreamer.” Both tracks were on their breakthrough 1974 album Crime of the Century. The success of “Give a Little Bit” also propelled its parent album to #16.[2]
Supertramp emerged from Daddy, a rock band co-founded around 1970 by British two piano-playing singer-songwriters: Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson. Davies had recently returned to England from the Netherlands with funding from Dutch millionaire Stanley Miesegaes. Davies advertised in Melody Maker for musicians to join a new band, catching Hodgson’s eye.
The two men were a study in contrasts. Davies grew up working-class in Swindon, Hodgson grew up middle class in Portsmouth. Davies had a deeper, rougher voice compared to Hodgson’s exquisite tenor. But they quickly discovered how well they complemented each other. They soon added saxophonist John Helliwell, bass player Dougie Thomson and drummer Bob Siebenberg to form the classic Supertramp lineup. Unfortunately, after achieving international stardom with the multiple-Grammy-Award-winning Breakfast in America, which topped the Billboard top 200 album chart in 1979, Hodgson acrimoniously left Supertramp in 1983.[3]
Any chance for a reunion – including at a possible future induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – sadly ended when Davies died from multiple myeloma at the age of 81 on September 6, 2025.[4]
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“Give a Little Bit” might be the first Supertramp song I ever heard, as it was released six days after I turned 11 years old. However, the first Supertramp track I truly loved was the haunting “The Logical Song,” released in March 1979 as the first single from Breakfast in America. It received a great deal of airplay while I sweltered that summer at Camp Arthur/Reeta in Zieglerville, PA. Later that fall, I convinced by funds-challenged father to buy me a copy of the album.
It was not just “The Logical Song” – Supertramp’s first American top 10 single, peaking at #6 – that led me to wear out that album in the fall of 1979 (along with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Damn the Torpedoes). Three other singles also received a great deal of airplay on WIFI-92, my favorite Philadelphia station: the playful title track (a live version hit #62 in 1981), the tongue-in-cheek “Goodbye Stranger” (#15) and the ethereal “Take the Long Way Home” (#10); a live version of “Dreamer” from Paris (#8) reached #15 at the end of 1980. “Take the Long Way Home” soon replaced “The Logical Song” as my favorite Supertramp song.
That is, until I began to listen more to Philadelphia rock stations WMMR and WYSP in 1981. These stations tended to prefer Crime of the Century tracks to Breakfast in America ones. In the fall of 1981, I created my second cassette mix, calling it Stuff, Vol. I. Unlike My Stuff from August, onto which I recorded tracks from my record collection, most tracks were taped from the radio, including “Bloody Well Right” on Side 2.
On the afternoon and early evening of May 16, 1982,[5] near the end of my sophomore year at Harriton High School, I attended a party in a friend’s house in Wynnewood, PA. Music played as we stood on a small stone patio at the rear of the house, eating and drinking the remnants of an outdoor barbecue. At one point, my ears perked up to the sound of a wailing harmonica. After it plays a slow blues riff, an electric guitar chimes in, quickly followed by a voice – Hodgson’s – singing “I can see you in the morning when you go to school. Don’t forget your books, you know you’ve got to learn the golden rule.” Inwardly, I began to cheer, while outwardly some of us began to sway and sing.
This is how Crime of the Century opens, with “School.” Ranked just outside my top 200, it remains my favorite Supertramp song. The 5 minute, 34 second track is propulsive, building to an epic piano solo, after which Davies and Hodgson trade caustic lyrics over a pounding beat. It had become a (relatively) hard rock staple, ranking #244 in the Rock and Roll 500 aired by WYSP just two weeks later over the Memorial Day weekend (May 28-31, 1982). Later that summer, I taped the song – probably from WYSP – onto Stuff, Vol. IV. At some point in the next year, I bought a used copy of Crime of the Century at the legendary Plastic Fantastic record store.
A few months later, Supertramp had its last American top 20 hit. “It’s Raining Again” from …Famous Last Words… peaked at #11 early in 1983, driven by a video in heavy rotation on MTV. That summer, over the July 4 weekend, WMMR, which leaned a bit more toward art and progressive rock, aired its own Philly 500. Four Supertramp songs appeared: “Bloody Well Right” (#456), “Take the Long Way Home” (#327), “Breakfast in America” (#283) and “The Logical Song” (#198).
It was around this time, however, that Hodgson’s departure spelled the end of the classic incarnation of Supertramp. The effervescent “Cannonball,” from Brother Where You Bound, did reach #28 around the time I taped it off the radio onto Summer of 85, Vol. III in June. I had recorded “Dreamer” and “Take the Long Way Home” from their original albums onto side 2 of Yet More Good Stuff, Vol. II the previous March, as I concluded my freshman year at Yale.
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It was not until August 1988, that I returned to Supertramp, taping “Give a Little Bit” from the radio onto side 2 of Summer 88, Vol. I.[6] A few weeks later, I moved to a studio apartment in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. In October, I recorded Washington, Vol. I – a mix of radio and album tracks. I had recently begun to play Breakfast in America again: closing out side two were its opening and closing tracks, “Gone Hollywood” and “Child of Vision,” as well as “The Logical Song.” “Child of Vision” is currently my 2nd favorite Supertramp track, ranked #275, not meaningfully ar ahead of “Take the Long Way Home” at #460. “The Logical Song” is a bit further back at #915.
Less than two years later, having moved to the Boston suburb of Somerville, I bought my first CD player. Among the first CDs I bought, from a 12-for-a-penny club, was a Supertramp greatest hits compilation. In 1993, I calculated my favorite tracks, albums and artists, and I decided to produce a mix tape collection highlighting my top 25 artists. Supertramp ranked #23 then.
And yet, I would not record another Supertramp track onto a mix until November 2003. I had recently acquired a CD copy of Crime of the Century, and I chose “Rudy” to end CD Stuff Vol. V, the closing CD of a three-CD series I recorded after I purchased my CD burner. “Crime of the Century” (CD Stuff, Vol XL) followed in May 2006. “Breakfast in America” finally made it onto a mix – CD Stuff, Vol. CLIII – in August 2016. This mix was one of a series of eight for my annual summer return to Philadelphia – and they are the last “official” CD mixes I ever burned. By now I was doing so from my desktop computer, using iTunes. “Goodbye Stranger,” whose opening electric piano riff I once picked out on my electronic keyboard, was put onto the 13th of 19 bathtub playlists I created that year.
And that is that, for now. In total, 13 Supertramp tracks appeared on an official mix between August 1981 and August 2016, 11 from either Crime of the Century (5) or Breakfast in America (6). As of this writing, these albums rank #176 and #60 for me, respectively. Supertramp is now my 62nd favorite musical artist – a bit of a drop from #23 in 1993, but still very respectable.
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In November 2024, I spoke by iPhone to the friend whose piano playing opens this essay. During our wide-ranging chat, he noted that when he and his family – wife, son, daughter, the latter two now in their 20s – get together in the evening in their Wisconsin house to chat or play games, they tend to play the same album.
Which album?
Breakfast in America by Supertramp.
I voiced my strong approval, singling out the four singles plus “Gone Hollywood” and “Child of Vision” for praise.
Thirty-six years after its release, Breakfast in America remains one of the greatest pop rock albums ever recorded. And 41 years after its release, Crime of the Century still retains its lyrical and musical power. This is a testament to the musical partnership forged by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, backed by Helliwell, Siebenberg and Thomson.
Rest in peace, Mr. Davies, and thank you for your brilliant music.
Until next time…and if you like what you read here, please consider making a donation. Thank you!
[1] For those of you familiar with my first book, this is the person I call “lifelong friend.”
[2] All Supertramp chart data from here.
[3] For more on the history of the band, see here.
[4]Photograph found online here.
[5] According to the date and place lifelong friend wrote on the back of a photograph of the event, along with 12 names, including mine. I forget whose house it was, though it was someone who attended Lower Merion High School, for decades the only high school in Lower Merion Township, which abuts Philadelphia’s western edge. In 1954, a second high school – Harriton – opened to accommodate the baby boom.
[6] It appeared on two more mixes over the next two years.
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