My kids call me a know-it-all. I always deny, of course, like all professional know-it-all’s would. Before you start drawing conclusions, I’m not a mansplainer, I usually stay far away from topics I know nothing about. One of my favourite know-it-all topics is music.

In a way I’m happy I hardly see my old friends anymore. It saves me a lot of musical embarrassment. I was wrong, I was so wrong about so much music and so many artists.

The last couple of weeks Joe Jackson’s ‘Big World’ (1986) hardly left my record player. Joe Jackson reminds me of Paul, one of my buddies 25 years ago. He loved Joe Jackson, who I always casually referred to as Joe Fuckson. Subtlety was never my biggest talent.

Paul also loved Tori Amos. I hated her. Too hysterical was my verdict. Circa 2001 I discovered Tori Amos with ‘Strange Little Girls’. I loved her version of ‘Enjoy the Silence’ (original by Depeche Mode) and started backtracking her discography. ‘Little Earthquakes’ is now one of my favourite songs. I could try to save myself by saying that i still don’t like all her music. I won’t. Not this time

The moral of it all? None really. I’m just very slow, and very convinced of myself and my judgement. It wasn’t as bad as what i did to one of my friends in college who made the ‘mistake’ of taping a couple of Queen songs for me. To write about that painful episode I need a bit more courage. For now, just remember to follow your own guts and intuition. Never trust a know-it-all.

P.S. I’m listening to the new Tori Amos album, ‘Native Invader’, it’s pretty good.