The Morning After: I Was a Willow Last Night in My Dream

Smithson goes crazy on Crazy on You. / Frank Micelotta / Getty for Fox

I was the youngest child in my family, with siblings nine to fourteen years older than me. (Yes, I was an accident.) What happens when you grow up with older sibs is that you end up having the pop cultural references of someone much older. I think I've mentioned before in this space that, when I was seven or eight years old, my sister used to tape episodes of Fernwood 2 Night--that's audiotape, on a cassette--and play them for me the next morning. And when I was even younger, I shared a room with my teenage brother, which gave me an inordinate level of exposure to mid-seventies rock. I can still recall particularly terrifying (at least to a six year old) sections of Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare.

All of which is to say, seeing the girls on American Idol do not one but two '70s-era Heart songs, it was like coming home. My first American Idol review of the season is up; on a rough night for the women overall, I have to give highest marks to Carly Smithson and Brooke White, while I worry for a couple of my favorites, Amanda Overmyer and Alexandrea Lushington. My guesses to go home? I'm going to say Kady Malloy and either Alaina Whitaker or Alexandrea. What did you think?