I played this record for everyone who would sit still for it when I bought it in 1979. No one liked it as much as I do. They said it was a bit too much, and I said moderation in expression of teenage humor is no virtue. ‘It’s kind of like carving the turkey/it’s kind of like mowing the lawn/everything gets to this certain dimension/winds up on the customer’s plate and then gone’—that’s funny even if I don’t know what it means (but I still look closely at my salad in restaurants.) ‘But if you wake up with your mind on fire/too frightened to even scream’—funny image as long as it doesn’t happen to me. ‘Now they’ve got poison in the water/and the whole world in a trance/but just because we’re hypnotized/that don’t mean we can’t dance.’ Party on.
A song about dating a vampire: ‘How come you start to hiss when I say my prayers/and you wear those stupid capes.’ Multiple bad break-up songs—‘the flames have gone out/let’s extinguish the embers/so you keep the car/and all the passionate letters/they won’t get you too far/but they’ll make you feel better.’ ‘Call it a mistake/call it whatever/let’s just call it off/better late than never.’ A parody of songs that spell out a word such as D-I-V-O-R-C-E—’I’m P-I-S-S ed off/Go to H-E-double L.’ And a joke that made it hard to listen to Running on Empty: ‘I wish I was as mellow/as for instance Jackson Browne/but “fountain of sorrow” my ass [vile obscenity]/I hope you wind up in the ground.’
When I looked the album up in Discogs, I saw that Jean Millington of Fanny played bass and Garth Hudson of The Band played accordion. The things I learn writing up my records.
converselyspeaking 