Sue Ellen and I would have been married by that point, but only just recently. A familiar ritual, then: A lad brings his new wife to his elderly mother's house for a pleasant Sunday dinner. Mom prepared comfort food, we settled in with full plates and our respective lovely beverages...and silence descended. None of us wanted to speak with mouths full.
"Maybe some music?" Mom suggested, and put on her current favorite.
Not that Mom owned any Nine Inch Nails albums. This was off of the soundtrack to Lost Highway, a movie that had come out the preceding fall and about which she couldn't stop raving. She'd bought the album largely for Angelo Badalementi's score, but in addition to NIN, it also featured tracks from Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins, David Bowie and Rammstein--and she loved them all.
The Lost Highway soundtrack sat on Mom's shelf alongside her copies of Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe and countless copies of Iron Butterfly's Ina-Gadda-Da-Vida--plus compilation albums from Eddy Arnold and Dinah Shore. As for Lost Highway itself, it remained Mom's favorite David Lynch film, though she admitted crying (!) during Mulholland Dr. Mom's tastes were nothing if not eclectic.
It's impossible to describe the giddy amusement of watching my mother shovel down tuna casserole while simultaneously (and I think subconsciously) banging her head from side to side. You had to be there. Fortunately, I was, and it's one of my happiest memories.
