First of all, “Baby I’m-A Want You”
is an objectively funny name for
an album. You would think, even
in the early seventies it would
be funny, but you would probably
be wrong about that. After all, irony
hadn’t been invented yet, so every
sappy and sentimental thing was
taken as absolutely sincere and
earnest. Purveyors of the early
soft rock explosion, pre-yacht-rock,
these guys were unintentionally super
silly. I got this record for free with
a purchase in a grab and go bin inside of
a little used record store in Sellwood.
I thought to myself, this might
be kind of entertaining to hear,
and so I took it home. And the hits,
like the title track, like “Everything
I Own,” or the story song about
a secret love: “I found her diary
underneath a tree, and started
reading about me.” And “wouldn’t
you know it, she wouldn’t show it;”
these are kind of fun to listen to,
if for no other reason, than to remember
what it was like to listen to AM
radio as a child on a transistor,
when those sweet melodies kind of
imbedded themselves into your bones
because you basically heard the same
40 songs over and over again.
The rest of this record, though,
beyond those three giant hits all
packed together on side one,
is pretty much skippable, forgettable.
You can’t fill up on Bread.
Notes on the vinyl edition: Baby I’m-A Want You, Elektra Records, 1972.
If you’re just now tuning in, I am attempting to listen to every record in my collection in alphabetical order by artist’s name, and afterward writing a poem-like-thing in response to the experience. In most cases (so far, all cases but one), I’m writing one poem-like-thing for each artist, no matter how many records of theirs I have listened to from the collection.
michael jarmer 