I’m challenging myself to get through a whole shuffle of my music collection on my iPod without skipping. Then I write about what I heard each week.
The title of the post this week comes from Mew’s song “Chinaberry Tree.” Mew’s music is so pretty and evocative, I just want to travel to this song and be a tourist inside it for awhile.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmpznHx3LeI
Here is the weekly summary:
* Songs listened to this week: 136
* Completed: 44%
* Number of double shots: 2 (The Police, Genesis)
* Percentage of songs that came up during running that were so totally not helpful in motivating my running: 29%
The songs that came up during my Tuesday evening run were so great, including my favorite running motivation song ever: Electric Six “Gay Bar.” I’m linking to a not-at-all official video for this song because it is so excellent, you have to check it out for at least a few seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCZvYXwBlkk
* Best coincidence: After finally mentioning the under-representation of Interpol songs in the shuffle thus far, four of their songs came up this week. It’s like the iPod knows, even though I’m sure it’s just my human brain looking for patterns.
* Guilty pleasure: Olivia Newton-John and Cliff Richard “Suddenly”
Rude Cactus, one of my favorite bloggers, discussed guilty pleasures this week and when I commented, I was all like “You don’t know from guilty dude!” Now I feel a little bad, because who am I to say that his guilty pleasures aren’t guilty and that mine are more so. Guilty pleasures are personal. Anyway, with that said, at the risk of judging guilty pleasures again…THIS is a guilty pleasure. I’m fully aware of how cheesy this song is, but goddamn, I love it. Just watching the video when I grabbed the link for this post made me all tingly. I’m a sucker for songs that are fun to sing. Plus, that Cliff Richard is dreamy, no? And I adore Olivia Newton-John, have loved her ever since my Mom took me to see Grease when I was five years old. She epitomized cool to me, even before Sandy becomes a slut in the movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkNDPQ4UfeU
* Best double shot of heart-satisfying musically-intelligent love songs: James “Just Like Fred Astaire” and The Police “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
I would totally have chosen “Just Like Fred Astaire” for my first dance wedding song if Dave and I had had a real wedding with those traditional bells and whistles. Oh yeah, and if the album had been released prior to our wedding. I think it came out a few days later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j1SnnrgXrI
I could listen to “Every Little Thing” eight million times on repeat and never tire of it. Before the shuffle challenge, having one of the live bootleg versions come up on my iPod made me stop the shuffle and play the original. Just hearing the first soft cymbals at the beginning makes my heart leap with joy that I get to hear this song. I love how energetic it is, a love song you can dance to. I love the video too, the guys are just so adorable with their dancing around. During the Police reunion frenzy, I downloaded what are apparently some of Sting’s demos for the Ghost in the Machine album. This song is just brilliant even on the demo. They supposedly couldn’t record a better version in the studio, so Stewart just played his drums over the demo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aENX1Sf3fgQ
* Random memories: The Beatles “Two of Us”
This song reminds me of high school. I planned on using the line “you and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead” as my senior yearbook quote but think I changed my mind to something dumb at the last minute. I can’t check this because somehow I have possession of my grade school yearbooks, but not the ones from high school. I just added that to the list of crap my Mom needs to bring down next week when she comes to visit for the NCAA tournament at Verizon Center.
I had really hoped that line from the Beatles would still ring true years later, but sadly, save for a couple of exceptions, I have lost touch with so many friends over the years, not just from high school. Often it was my fault, but sometimes it was just a drifting that happens when you can’t choose to live nearby to everyone you love after you grow up. Sucks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Y3PlmwnRM
* Song/video to celebrate the week that Dave’s bass pedals finally arrived: Genesis “Abacab”
Dave helpfully forwarded me the link to this video so that I could see the bass pedals at the beginning (at the 4 second mark). You see, Dave needed bass pedals. Now he has bass pedals. Every day is like Christmas around here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk4OVoJZrBU
I didn’t even remember having senior quotes, so I had to look ours up. Lame part is they’re all unattributed. Your quote is from “Across the Universe” instead – “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup; they slither while they pass; they slip away across the universe.” I have a harp quote – “And your body is the harp of your soul, and it is yours to bring foth sweet music from it or confused sounds.” Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet. I haven’t looked at that in ages and ages – would be a totally different read now that I’m all adult and everything. Man, I really miss having curly hair. And you know what very important truth I had forgotten all about? Pigs ass is pork. Or is it pigs’ ass is pork?
Thanks, now I don’t have to wait for Mom to bring my yearbooks! I think the “Two of Us” line would have been better. The pigs ass is pork line makes me really look forward to reading whatever crap people wrote in these things. I’m sure looking through them will be very entertaining.
I love music, too! Such a unique post. Very fun to get lost in glimpses of what you’re listening to!
Thanks! I’m challenging myself to get through a whole shuffle of my music collection on my iPod without skipping. Then I write about what I heard each week. Should probably make that point each week! I thought it would be a relatively “easy” way to have weekly content, but these posts end up taking some time, but creating them is fun.