Jamie Lee Curtis turned me on to this

I was somewhat familiar with Shawn Colvin, having liked the song "Steady On" from her debut record, and I was aware that she had a new record out. I was in LA on business, working for PolyGram at the time, doing artist development. I went out to visit A&M Records (RIP) when they were on the Chaplin lot, and I'd stay at the Nikko on La Cienega, because they had CD players in the rooms, which was pretty rare in 1993.

I always got the shit kicked out of me in meetings at A&M, they were tough, smart, pretentious fuckers, so a trip to Virgin Records on Sunset was good therapy. They had an amazing selection of CDS and laserdiscs (!)

Anyways, I was lying in bed with this girl I was dating who lived in LA, who ended up being mad as a bag of spiders, although I didn't know it at the time. I was mentally and physically drained, post-coitally shattered in the way only sex with a emotional basketcase can make you. I was in enough of a stupor to click on the TV and watch The Tonight Show, where Jamie Lee Curtis was cackling on about some crap new film she was in.

After a minute or so, she stopped talking about the film, and Leno (or was it still Johnny?) asked her what else she wanted to talk about. Surprisingly, Jamie Lee Curtis then went into a minute long advertorial about how great the new Shawn Colvin record (Fat City) was, how it was life changing, brilliant music. I recall her mentioning the song "Polaroids", and how it was genius. Her diatribe was so passionately delivered, with almost religious fervor, that I told myself I'd buy Fat City the next day when I hit Virgin.

And Jamie Lee Curtis was right - the record WAS genius. It kind of became an LA record for me, I connected it a bit with the relationship I was having, which with predictably bad results. So I didn't listen to Fat City for a long time. Recently, I dragged it out again, and it's still shockingly good. With the benefit of distance/experience/age "Polaroids" means more now to me that it probably ever did. So thank you, Jamie Lee Curtis! Here are the lyrics:

And it said Valentine 

and a live performance of the song by Shawn: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqYOR0BwAx A