The other day I had this memory surface quite randomly. I was about my son's age, maybe six or seven, and I was in the basement of my grandparents' house in Midland, Ontario.
In this memory I can see the billiards table, the brownish-orange shag carpeting, and in the corner, this great old turntable with dozens of records. I'm leafing through the records and along with The Irish Rovers and several artists I wasn't familiar with, there are many albums by Randy Newman.
This memory sort of sprung up and bit me out of nowhere, so I secured myself Randy Newman's entire catalogue of music and dove in. I've been listening to Randy quite a bit these past few days, and I'm loving it. I dig his style, his lyrics, the way he tells a story in song and the tone of his voice. Sure, I knew a little Randy Newman before, but I never appreciated his talent until now.
My grandfather, as it turned out, was a big Randy Newman fan. I was pretty young when my grandpa passed away, and I haven't really thought about him in over a decade, but suddenly we have this link.
Music's kinda neat that way.
