A few weeks ago, my friends Jen and C. and I were talking about albums we had worn out with frequent repetition as kids. We brought up our favorite LPs that were marketed specifically to kids (like Free to Be You and Me) as well as pop albums that we gravitated toward when our taste was relatively unformed (one word: Fanilow).
Then Jen said, “And of course there was The Point.” Met by blank stares, she prompted, “Of course you remember The Point? ‘This is the town and these are the people?’”
Crickets.
“‘Me and my Arrow?’”
Well, that sort of rang a bell.
So Jen made us each a copy of the album on CD, and after one long commute, I was hooked. The Point is an animated musical fable about a little boy, Oblio, who was born in the Land of Point, but without the distinguishing pointed head that features on all the other denizens. The plot outline is standard After School Special stuff (everyone has a point, even if he, you know, doesn’t), but the execution is not at all sentimental, and the music is really something special.
The composer and musician, Harry Nilsson, also narrates the story on the album. (Ringo Starr narrates the animated version, the beginning of a career in children’s media that would culminate nauseatingly in Thomas the Tank Engine voice-overs.) Nilsson’s name sounded vaguely familiar to me, and through the wonders of Wikipedia and the info feed on my satellite radio, I’ve discovered that some of my favorite songs from the ’70s were recorded by Nilsson: “Everybody’s Talking at Me,” “Without You” (which I had always thought was Eric Carmen?) and “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” theme. (No, really; I love that song.) Most of the songs on The Point! became immediate favorites, especially “Me and My Arrow” (adapted for the car commercial) and “Think About Your Troubles.”
There is one song, “Life Line,” about a dog who’s stuck in a well and pleading for someone to help him, that sets me crying every time. I can’t even type this description without getting all choked up. This is clearly a projection along the lines of “it is Margaret you mourn for,” although it may just be that I can’t stand to think of anything bad happening to my own dog. This in turn reminds me of a man I knew in the Peace Corps, a large fellow of about 6′5″ and tough as nails. Whenever he heard “Puff the Magic Dragon” he would bawl copiously. It was something of a party trick in those years for his friends to wait until he was all liquored up and then start singing, “Dragons live forever, but not so little boys…” and count the seconds until his tears began to flow. Good times!
Anyway, if you have school-age children, The Point! will be a sure-fire hit for long car rides, and if you never caught it as a kid you’ll thank me (and Jen) for rectifying that cultural omission.