This week in 1975, the U.S. shut down its embassy in Phnom Penh, as Khmer Rouge approached a military victory; a deep-sea salvage vessel recovered wreckage of a Soviet submarine that sank in 1968 and a Beaumont, Texas, singer named Billy Jean Spears was on her way to her only No. 1 record.

A misunderstood line in the chorus about “married people slippin’ around” had kept the song “The Blanket On The Ground” unrecorded and on the shelf for over three years.

Record producers had continually turned down the song, thinking radio programmers and record buyers would not take ...

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