Old Enough to Forget

My earliest memories of hearing songs from  The White Album  is probably from 1972. I remember this because my older cousins wanted to hear "Smoke on the Water" and I wanted to hear "Rocky Raccoon" and I was outvoted. My Aunt and Uncle seemed to have the coolest music from Alice Cooper to The Doobie Brothers. The Beatles had broken up years earlier and none of my friends listened to them.  The Beatles were music for an older generation. Me and the other kids I knew were all over what was on the current top 40 and we'd argue in class about whether CKLG or CFUN was the best station. I'd give a passive listen once in a while to a country station (ick) if my Uncle was on the radio over at CJJC and I have one vague memory of us sitting around waiting for him to play "Kiss an Angel Good Morning" for my Aunt. Regardless, they had an eight track copy of The White Album , and if the stars aligned I could get them to play it. I finally got a copy for myself ...

As a kid I was enamoured with the movie Yellow Submarine . I don't remember the year I first saw it on our tiny black and white television, it was maybe 1969 or 1970, My parents were having a party and I got to stay up late and as long as I wasn't seen or heard I could do what I wanted. I'm not sure if this was the night I watched Hitari! with John Wayne and Red Buttons (tell me again about the monkeys ...) and Yellow Submarine but those two movies are intertwined in my memory as a double feature. I always loved the songs Ringo sang. It was 1973 and Ringo was having his day in the sun. Songs like "Photograph" and "Oh My My" were a big deal. Although "You're Sixteen" was huge it was always a little creepy sounding even to my ten year old ears. Go figure. Over the years I maintained my soft spot for Ringo, although I never got any of his records. I did of course pick up a greatest hits CD, but my fandom never really translated into sales. So...

Oh my stars and garters, look what the dollar bin coughed up. A 1967 first Canadian pressing of The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour . Yeah, this is a pretty awesome score. Too bad the 24-page full color picture book has been lost to the ravages of time. The vinyl itself though despite looking a little sketchy in a couple of places, particularly on the first side, turned out to play really clean with a few little pops here and there but overall this was a really pleasant surprise. The gatefold itself was obviously well loved by the previous owners, who marked their names under several of the songs. I'm guessing they were siblings who fought over ownership. Somewhere David, John, Ellen and Author ended up with nothing, and here I am 55 years later claiming sole ownership. Let that be a lesson kids. DON'T MARK SHIT UP WITH INK. Anyways, here I am geeking out and listening to the album for the first time in its entirety. Now, like a lot of people too young to have witnessed The Beatle...

Like a lot of casual fans, I'd heard of Harry Nilsson much like I'd heard of Ernest Hemingway. I knew the name more than anything he's actually written. Over the years I knew of a couple of songs, particularly the beautiful "Without You" and of course "Everybody's Talkin'" from Midnight Cowboy. He had also covered songs by others, most notably Nilsson Sings Newman and others would cover his songs, from the Monkees to Three Dog Night. That was it. As a result of this depth of knowledge (sarcasm alert) I had pigeon-holed him into the '70s pop singer slot where soft rock went to die. One of the albums that was on my radar was Nilsson Schmilsson from late 1971. It was the album that had "Without You" and the truly odd "Coconuts" but as fate would have it the album I found in the dollar bin was his 1972 follow up released while his previous album was still on the charts. It was called Son of Schmilsson so it was probably li...