Old Enough to Forget

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...

This is the North American release of Himself that added his signature song "Alone Again (Naturally)" and changed up the cover art. Now Gilbert looked like Archie Andrews (without the ginger hair and freckles) rather than a street urchin from a Charlie Chaplin movie. If you didn't like the long haired freaky people, here was Gilbert, a dapper figure in his letter sweater looking like was just waiting to help an old lady cross the street to add to his collection of merit badges. This is a rather strange album. For me the draw was "Alone Again (Naturally)" with his double tracked vocal and  Paul McCartney infused delivery. The srupy string arrangement hearkened back to another time, but it sure was a great song. Even now this is a piece of pop magic, and it brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye when I hear it - it makes me think about my dad. So I was more than a little curious when I got this from the bargain bin. It's not a throw away bubble gum alb...

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...