page_title: List of Billboard Easy Listening number ones of 1972
section_title: Chart history
hierarchical_section_title: List of Billboard Easy Listening number ones of 1972 / Chart history
caption_attribution_description: From Baltimore M.D. Meyerhoff theater May 7, 1995 © copyright JohnMathewSmith 2010
context_page_description: Adult Contemporary is a chart published by Billboard ranking the top-performing songs in the United States in the adult contemporary music genre. In 1972, 21 songs topped the chart, then published under the title Easy Listening, based on playlists submitted by easy listening radio stations and sales reports submitted by stores.
  In the first issue of Billboard of 1972, Three Dog Night moved into the number one position on the Easy Listening chart with "An Old Fashioned Love Song", but the band held the top spot for only a single week before being replaced by David Cassidy with "Cherish". One week later, Don McLean's "American Pie" took the number one position. The song, noted for its allegorical lyrics which are generally regarded as relating to the history of rock and roll music, also topped Billboard's all-genre singles chart, the Hot 100, and has come to be regarded as a classic. In 2001, it was voted into the top 5 of a poll of the Songs of the Century compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
caption: Roberta Flack (pictured c.2010) spent six weeks at number one with "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and had a second number one later in the year collaborating with Donny Hathaway.
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