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 ...

When I was still in my teens I picked up Gord's Gold , and it was one of those collections every guitar player seemed to have. It didn't matter if rock and roll was your jam, Gord's Gold transcended genres and was a masterclass in what could be done with the guitar and accompanying vocal. For me this was the penultimate Gordon Lightfoot album (to be fair, it was the only Gordon Lightfoot album I had). When you mention his name, it seems like most people are partial to "Sundown" or his magnificent opus "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," but those weren't my favourite songs. I actively disliked "Sundown" as a kid, and to this day I still have a hard time with the song. Which is a shame, as it's a great song. Whereas "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was enthralling the first time I heard it, and just as quickly wore out its welcome, but if it comes on I won't tune it out. Ah, the summary judgment of youth. Intractable...

A new-to-me release. Many years ago I picked up Romeo Unchained and Notes from the Lost Civilization (not in that order), mainly because they were on WHAT?/A&M, where Mark Heard's iDEoLA project was released. So I figured it was a guilty-by-association sort of thing. It was an indie label after all, so that had to mean something. I remember liking Notes from the Lost Civilization , but honestly, I was getting so much music back then that unless something really blew my hat off, I gave it a listen or two and then filed it away. Here I am years later, and up pops a rather water-damaged copy of Life in the Foodchain . It made me sad looking at it. The vinyl was in surprisingly good shape, but any liner notes and credits were long lost to the gods of misplaced socks. Still, this was an album I had always been curious about, so I brought it home, where it joined the queue of treasures waiting for a turn(table). I popped it on, and the title track was cranked in the cave (everyone w...