Midnight plane to Houston

Jim Weatherly with Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1973

Here is one of my favorite examples in pop music of how a pretty decent song can be made into an absolute classic.

In 1970, a songwriter named Jim Weatherly called his buddy on the phone. He wasn’t home, but his girlfriend, this woman named Farrah Fawcett, answered the phone. Weatherly chatted with her a bit and Fawcett said she was packing for a “midnight plane to Houston.” He thought that sounded like a good title for a song, and wrote and...