for all the wrong reasons
When I was eighteen, the boy I had a crush on (my first indy rocker) was all excited about having bought the newly released boxed set edition of Pet Sounds for his dad (for his birthday). I, too, was excited. "I love that album!" I exclaimed, in what I thought was solidarity.
It turns out, the fact that I liked the album (I grew up on The Beach Boys, though, admittedly, mostly the Time Life: Sounds of the Sixties series my dad had on vinyl) wasn't exactly what he had in mind. He informed me that he didn't really think we liked it for the same reasons, so, basically, the fact that I had a certain affection toward the songs didn't really mean anything to him.
It's taken me years to get over this. I'm still convinced that there's too much stuff I don't know for my opinion ever to be taken as anything more than a frivolous whim. (Which, probably, it has become as a result.) I feel kinda like Kate Beckinsale in Laurel Canyon when a stoned Francis McDormand is trying to explain that "anyone with instinct knows about popular music—that's why it's popular". But I'm not really the type to light up and have a threesome in the pool with my boyfriend's mom and some random rockstar with a silly accent, so ...
In the interest of freeing myself from the confines of the pretense of having anything resembling "good taste", let me be the first to admit, it is not out of any kind of hipster irony, deep knowledge of all things obscure and underappreciated, or even any hint of investigation that I say this. (I'm sure, even, that the person who's inspired me to dig this out again would be at best confused and at worst totally mortified to know that) everything I know about a certain Harry Nilsson stems from this movie:
I saw it when I was, like, four. I totally loved it. And (while there's no part of me that wasn't excited when, after my boyfriend said, "Oh, wow, are you kidding?" and I said, "Oh, I'm totally fucking serious.", the cute little hipster boy at the counter said, "Oh my god this is an /awesome/ movie!") when I finally bought a copy at the local hip indy record store six or eight months ago, that is exactly what I was thinking. Yes! I remember this movie! This movie is /awesome/!
Anyway, the point is, thank god I did. Because, basically, it's genius. I'm sure anyone who knows anything will tell you these are the worst Harry Nilsson songs ever recorded and he was all coked up at the time and the whole movie is an excuse for a debaucherous bunch of musician hooligans to unleash a drug-addled cartoon on the unsuspecting public, but shut up. This is great kids stuff. It's full of fun voices, snappy musical numbers, and totally decent puns. Some of the asides between the townsfolk are stunning. And while I'm sure I probably heard the Alan Thicke version as a small child, the home video version I bought has Ringo Starr narrating, and (as much as I should probably think of something clever to say about Ringo Starr pontificating about pointlessness) I actually find his voice quite soothing.
There's political stuff ("I wish there was never such a law, and well, now that it's been used, it seems unfair." "How come nobody ever did anything about it before, Dad?" "Well, it just never came up before ..."). And then a long something-er-other about the life cycles of things ("eaten by some fishes / who were eaten by some other fishes / and swallowed by a whale / who grew so old he decomposed"). There's a mean guy who they never even refer to as being mean ("Oh, he was liked ... but he was not /well/ liked ..."). And then there's this whole Princess Bride-style frame narrative that's all tricky 'cause the dad doesn't realize that the kid's actually watching TV while he's reading...
This is out of control, I realize. I'm shutting up now. The point is: When did stuff for kids become bland and pandering? Why can't smart people write interesting things for children and 1) trust that they're not idiots just because they don't know as much as you do and 2) allow for some things to go over their heads (which they can revisit later, and possibly learn even more from, when suddenly they realize that Harry Nilsson and Carole King and Peggy Lee and all those things they loved as children have even more value than they could have imagined).
It turns out, the fact that I liked the album (I grew up on The Beach Boys, though, admittedly, mostly the Time Life: Sounds of the Sixties series my dad had on vinyl) wasn't exactly what he had in mind. He informed me that he didn't really think we liked it for the same reasons, so, basically, the fact that I had a certain affection toward the songs didn't really mean anything to him.
It's taken me years to get over this. I'm still convinced that there's too much stuff I don't know for my opinion ever to be taken as anything more than a frivolous whim. (Which, probably, it has become as a result.) I feel kinda like Kate Beckinsale in Laurel Canyon when a stoned Francis McDormand is trying to explain that "anyone with instinct knows about popular music—that's why it's popular". But I'm not really the type to light up and have a threesome in the pool with my boyfriend's mom and some random rockstar with a silly accent, so ...
In the interest of freeing myself from the confines of the pretense of having anything resembling "good taste", let me be the first to admit, it is not out of any kind of hipster irony, deep knowledge of all things obscure and underappreciated, or even any hint of investigation that I say this. (I'm sure, even, that the person who's inspired me to dig this out again would be at best confused and at worst totally mortified to know that) everything I know about a certain Harry Nilsson stems from this movie:
I saw it when I was, like, four. I totally loved it. And (while there's no part of me that wasn't excited when, after my boyfriend said, "Oh, wow, are you kidding?" and I said, "Oh, I'm totally fucking serious.", the cute little hipster boy at the counter said, "Oh my god this is an /awesome/ movie!") when I finally bought a copy at the local hip indy record store six or eight months ago, that is exactly what I was thinking. Yes! I remember this movie! This movie is /awesome/!
Anyway, the point is, thank god I did. Because, basically, it's genius. I'm sure anyone who knows anything will tell you these are the worst Harry Nilsson songs ever recorded and he was all coked up at the time and the whole movie is an excuse for a debaucherous bunch of musician hooligans to unleash a drug-addled cartoon on the unsuspecting public, but shut up. This is great kids stuff. It's full of fun voices, snappy musical numbers, and totally decent puns. Some of the asides between the townsfolk are stunning. And while I'm sure I probably heard the Alan Thicke version as a small child, the home video version I bought has Ringo Starr narrating, and (as much as I should probably think of something clever to say about Ringo Starr pontificating about pointlessness) I actually find his voice quite soothing.
There's political stuff ("I wish there was never such a law, and well, now that it's been used, it seems unfair." "How come nobody ever did anything about it before, Dad?" "Well, it just never came up before ..."). And then a long something-er-other about the life cycles of things ("eaten by some fishes / who were eaten by some other fishes / and swallowed by a whale / who grew so old he decomposed"). There's a mean guy who they never even refer to as being mean ("Oh, he was liked ... but he was not /well/ liked ..."). And then there's this whole Princess Bride-style frame narrative that's all tricky 'cause the dad doesn't realize that the kid's actually watching TV while he's reading...
This is out of control, I realize. I'm shutting up now. The point is: When did stuff for kids become bland and pandering? Why can't smart people write interesting things for children and 1) trust that they're not idiots just because they don't know as much as you do and 2) allow for some things to go over their heads (which they can revisit later, and possibly learn even more from, when suddenly they realize that Harry Nilsson and Carole King and Peggy Lee and all those things they loved as children have even more value than they could have imagined).
