Silly Little Country

She's so High - is that really the inspiration?

Aarggh. Trapped by the editing process - thought I had posted the following when I made my last posting on this song. So assume this was here last weekend.

CBC's Fuse show (a refreshing replacement for the normal Sunday Edition droning) featured Randy Bachman and his son Tal Bachman last Sunday morning. Regrettably I see no way for anyone to hear this again now from the web - it was lovely.
I know despite never hearing the guy in his heyday that Randy Bachman is one of the great figures of Canadian Rock and Roll - but you probably know more than I do about him, just because of the timing (in my life - I know nothing much - though I recognize lots of his stuff now).

The show featured two wonderful points.

In one, Randy talked about his reaction to his son's going to University. He implored him, according to the story, not to waste his time that way, but to stick to a music career. You see, Randy was well aware of Tal's skills at that point, and he was also aware of the competition, as a recipient of thousands of demo tapes, and he said he knew Tal's were superior.

The other interesting point was Tal's story of writing his great pop song "She's so High". But his story of what inspired him baffled me. He said it came from building up the courage to approach one of the cool girls in high school, purportedly to ask for a date with her for his stepbrother. (Doctor, I have a friend who ...)

But then I thought - wait a second! This guy is the son of the guy who is arguably Canada's leading rock and roll figure of the last twenty years? He thinks that gives him no market power with the cool girls in the school? And actually, listening to the show, I got the feeling that might really be true - these guys seemed nicely grounded. Maybe Tal was that dense/innocent. Tal did seem surprised that the cool girl in question seemed eager to field the request. ("Wow - I'll get to meet Randy Bachman....")

A small point - "She's so High" really hit the top when sung by the Norwegian Idol. (Just for my sister's Norwegians in the News series.)

posted by Alan Adamson @ 4:52 PM