I’m thinking about 1974 because this weekend there is a high school reunion featuring the Smithtown High School class of 74 out on Long Island. I’m upstate and can’t get away for what would be a fun time hanging with old friends. I wish I could.

Which got me thinking about the songs of our senior year. These are the songs, if I was there, I would hope would evoke tears and lovely hugs, which reminded us best of how much more civilized we are now than we were than.

So I started sifting through the top pop songs of 1994 and discovered that the first song I could embrace esthetically was also a killer dance tune and just one of an amazing album’s worth of songs in a variety of genres by a band that would late become emblematic of disco dreck. But that was later.

But for one album, called “Wild and Peaceful,” Kool and the Gang were not only a great funk band, a great soul band, a great jazz band, and a great pop band, but, um, a great band.

If I were able to get out to the Marriott in Islandia tomorrow night and join in a rocking dance floor, the first song I’d want to hear is this one. Hello all!