Old Enough to Forget

Stealing Fire released in '84 was one of those rare albums that managed to be as awesome as it was perplexing. Despite my mixed reactions to some of his stuff there was a slice of time during the '80s where I kept up with him in real time. I know there's a shit load of love for his 1979 hit "Wondering Where the Lions Are" and despite his appearance playing the song on SNL I never really like it all that much. Oh it got under my skin in the same way that Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" irritated me as a kid. In a scene worthy of Python where they're accusing Connie Booth of being a witch, I had been a musical newt ... I got better. Although I still revert from time to time. Regardless, I think the point I was trying to make before I distracted myself by thinking of Monty Python, was that for a little while I considered myself a fan, still do - just a tad more casual and less invested than some. I started my journey with T he Trouble with Normal , an...

Bruce Cockburn is an artists' artist. One whose conviction and seriousness seem overwhelming and to be honest a little intimidating. He always seemed like a guy who had a sense of humour but kept it in a shoe box one the shelf in his closet lest he use it and undermine his own sense of purpose. As a teenager my first exposure to him was when he hit it big with "Wondering Where the Lions Are" a song that is intricately structured. I saw him perform the song on Saturday Night Live, and I remember thinking, "Wow, he's on T.V." followed closely by "Man, I can't stand that song." It was true, it was right up there as a tweofer along with Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" as songs I could appreciate the grandeur and scope of, but couldn't stand. Then there'd be other songs, and for whatever reason I never forgot his appearance on The Alan Hamel Show (that later devolved into The Alan Thicke Show, and would ...

When MuchMusic launched in 1984 it was a weird and wonderful time. More often than not you just got to see what you were hearing on the radio, and the videos would run the gamut from rock to pop and then that first odd bunch of video jockeys would share some banter and introduce the next song with more witty banter. Every so often though there'd be something weird and wonderful you didn't get to hear on the radio. "Fish Heads" was one of those. Dang, I didn't mean to open that can of worms ... now I'm singing it in my head, "Fish heads, fish heads roly-poly fish heads, eat them up, yum." If you know what I'm talking about, good luck getting that out of your head. You're welcome. Fudge, this has messed with my continuity ... Where was I before I went off into the weeds? Right, videos that weren't on the radio. Aside from the unnamed song about the aquatic swimmy thing's eyeball holder there was a strange and quirky song called "Mi...