4 Soft Rock Songs From the 70s That Could Put You in a Trance

Listening to soft rock is basically like taking a natural anti-anxiety supplement. Here are some soft rock 70s that, if you’re not careful, could easily put you in a trance.

“Ventura Highway” by America (ft. George Martin)

Inspired by a road sign he saw in California that said “Ventura” on it, America‘s Dewey Bunnell penned this hit. Fun fact: Bunnell is actually from Omaha, Nebraska, which really isn’t anything like California.

“So I think in the song I’m talking to myself, frankly: ‘How long you gonna stay here, Joe?’” he explained in the booklet for the Highway boxed set. “I really believe that ‘Ventura Highway’ has the most lasting power of all my songs. It’s not just the words — the song and the track have a certain fresh, vibrant, optimistic quality that I can still respond to.”

“Fooled Around And Fell In Love” by Elvin Bishop

This song was actually a last-minute addition to Bishop’s 1974 album, Struttin’ My Stuff.

“We got almost enough tunes in the can for the project,” Bishop told AL.com. “But then the producer said, ‘Man, we need one more piece of material. You got any old thing laying around we can do?’”

That “old thing” turned out to be Bishop’s biggest career hit.

“Lowdown” by Boz Scaggs

Scaggs wrote this groovy tune with David Paich. Initially, the song wasn’t super successful, but it got more attention after a Cleveland DJ started playing it. Eventually, it went No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Scaggs his first major hit.

“We hit on ‘Lowdown,’ and then we brought it back to the band and recorded it,” Scaggs told Songfacts of when the song was written. “We were just thrilled with that one. That was the first song that we attempted, and it had a magic to it.”

“Give A Little Bit” by Supertramp

Roger Hodgson, who sang and played guitar for Supertramp, actually wrote this song several years before the band released it. But according to Hodgson, putting the song out still worked at the time, because the general vibe of the 60s and 70s was still going strong.

“The Beatles had put out ‘All You Need Is Love’ a year prior to that,” he explained to Songfacts. “I believed in love — it was always for love — and just felt that was the most important thing in life.”

Photo by: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images