"Didn't realize it. I'm sorry to hear it was nonsense."
"How do you know it was nonsense?"
"You just said so."
Ten or fifteen minutes more of this verbal frolic and I essay a politely inane closing riff. "Well, good luck on your Japan tour. I'm sure it'll be a good shot for you."
"A good shot for me ... I mean, what am I after? It doesn't matter. I mean, that's why I'm calling. I don't want to be nominated for ... youth leader or anything."
"I understand that. But you want to be heard, don't you?"
"Well, I wanna be heard, yeah. But what is being heard, really? What does it mean 'to be heard?'"
"If we could turn things around, what kinds of questions would you want to be asked?"
"I'm not trying to create any new questions. I'm trying to destroy older ones."
Finally, come Thursday afternoon, an important artifact arrives; an advance cassette copy of Little Stevie Orbit, Forbert's third album to feature a coyly self-referential title. "Can't tell what something's like/'Til you've been there yourself," says "Laughter Lou," a blast at critics that's sandwiched between two disarmingly open-hearted love songs to two different women. "Sailed around the world alone," says a song to an emotionally isolated rich girl, "Too bad it took ya nowhere."
Throughout the album, as on the two before, several basic styles merge--a sea-chanty-like instrumental called "Lucky" precedes "Rain," which kicks off with a vintage Nashville feel. Then "I'm an Automobile" features a hard rock thump and a lighthearted come-on called "Schoolgirl" arrives with a skipping, folksy tempo. True to the ways established on the first two LPs, Forbert's melodies are catchy and his lyrics hang around to provoke rethinking. The songs not so much demand attention as engage it, sidling up to a listener's imagination with payloads of humor, observation and, sometimes, frustration. Whatever other items may be on the singer's imaginary schedule, whatever psychological armor he thinks he needs to wear, it's still a privilege to hear the fresh blends Forbert has to offer. His unspoken ambition--to be really worthy of the flattering comparisons he's inspired--just might come true