Old Enough to Forget

"Short People" was the first song I'd heard by Randy Newman when I was a kid. It was also one of those songs far too many people took at face value based on the title, who didn't even bother to listen to the song. I still remember the tempest in a tea cup and even then it was perplexing. Dang, even Billy Barty wasn't very happy about the song. I know there were a lot of people who seemed to pride themselves on not listening to the lyrics of a song as a way of defending themselves when listening to "questionable" music. At least that was a defence a lot of "Christian" kids used to defend listening to secular music. The ability to be tone-deaf and easily offended isn't something new ... The problem with satire is to some folks it's just truth wrapped in humour as a way of sending in a Trojan horse filled with hate and bigotry. Randy Newman's affinity for first person narratives that cut deep can be a little on the nose, and with ...