Album: The Point!
Year: 1971
It’s weird, the things you remember from your childhood. And, of course, it gets hazier all of the time. That said. I absolutely remember watching The Point! as an 8-year-old kid when it was broadcast on ABC in early 1971.
Which seems weird, because, according to the internet, that would have been a school night, so maybe I saw a rerun. Either way, I know I saw The Point!, and totally related to its fable of a kid who didn’t quite fit in trying to make his way in a world that demanded conformity.
Given that I was going to a school that was in a different neighborhood in which I lived, was playing a sport (soccer) that was considered “foreign” and had skipped a grade, ensuring I was always going to be more immature than my classmates, I’m sure I enjoyed the lysergic reassurance of The Point!
I do know this: the main takeaway I had from it was the song “Me And My Arrow,” which stuck instantly in my head, and pretty much stayed there forever. That said, it never entered the pantheon of songs I had my parents buy for me so I could listen to them endlessly — things like “The Batman Theme,” “The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down & “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron” — so it was only much much later that I found out that the whole thing was orchestrated by Harry Nilsson.
Pretty much all melancholy chorus, “Me And My Arrow” conveys the both the explicit friendship between the boy and his dog in the film, but also can be interpreted as someone coming to accept who they are.
And more importantly, it’s also prettier than hell and vaguely Beatlesque.
“Me and My Arrow”
The Original 1971 Broadcast of The Point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xl50qKVkqE
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