This is probably the first piece of vinyl I came across in my life, or at least the first I remember. We were an 8-track family until about 1977/1978, and while 8-tracks of the Soundtrack for The Sound of Music, The Partridge Family (my personal favorite) and Neil Diamond kept us going as a unit, my brother got the family’s first record player and piece of vinyl—and that was Steve Martin’s Let’s Get Small. I was obsessed with the cover of this album, between the fake glasses, the balloons, and the puckered lips, I was wondering just what the hell it all meant.
And the album itself was hysterical, or so I learned. My older brothers played it non-stop in our room (the room was actually shared by three of us at the time) and while still at the green age of six or seven, I remember my brother Kevin explaining what “let’s get small” meant, and what pot was, and why the mother stuff was funny. It’s kind of a remarkable album to me because it was my first lesson on humor by the funniest person I have ever met, my brother Kevin. I pretty much had a love affair with Steve Martin after this formative moment up and until Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, after that it was mostly downhill.
Download Steve Martin’s “I’m so mad at my mother”
But what I really remember at the end of the day was how fascinating it was learn about how funny it is to joke about being cruel to one’s mother, because for me it was the most alien and unimaginable concept—an by extension hilarious by virtue if its very impossibility. Happy Mother’s day mom, I miss you dearly.
