Because of this, I've started using Spotify in angry protest... tired of iToons... but it also means I've been listening to my entire library on random. I don't do this particularly often. Twenty three thousand songs would take over 2 months to go through if I did nothing but listened to music all day long. And I do sleep, watch TV, play video games, etc.
But random's cool. I've been remembering a lot of music that I'd sort of forgotten about, or hadn't heard in quite a long time.
Like this; it's a song about someone who was cat-sitting their friend's pet, which then escaped. (Not to worry, in stuff on the band's web page, the cat was found...)
Or this one... yeah... I sort of think of this song as being ode to an introvert...
I'm not very good at "favorite" games. I'm the girl who describes at least six people as being "my best friend." I don't like to pick one thing; I want this and that and the other and all that over there, too, while I'm at it. Favorite food? Cheese (mostly any sort, except American, which is just gross.), steak, escargot with butter and garlic, spinach dip, asparagus and cream cheese omelets, chocolate mint ice cream, sixlets, licorice, fresh tomato slices with just a bit of sea salt, salted caramel, coffee... really, can I stop now? I'm making myself hungry.
And I've also never been really good at the "if you were on a deserted island, what 5 books would you take with you?" Seriously? Most of the books I love come in series; the Liaden series, which I adore, is over 16 books just by itself! (and yes, I probably could read the whole series back to back for a while...) I mean, have y'all seen my bookshelves? If I still own the book, it means I've read it more than once. In fact, there are several sets of books I make it a habit to read once every few years (Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Tenant of Wildefell Hall, the Liaden Universe, Uplift Saga, the Crystal Singer series, Dresden Files, the Vlad Taltos series, Watership Down, Rose of the Prohpet... )
Movies? Hunt for Red October, Mulan, Star Wars (yes, even episode 1. Fuck you. I don't care what you think.) the Duelists, Das Boot, Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name series, Hudson Hawk, Shaun of the Dead, the BBC Pride and Prejudice (the good one, not the craptastic Keirra Knightly version) the Mummy, xXx (yes. hush.), Lord of the Rings (elves! At helmsdeep. Oh, shut UP!) Fantasia, Shoot 'em Up (yes.), American Beauty... crap, now I want to go downstairs and watch tv all day...
But I thought, maybe - MAYBE, mind you - I could come up with 100 songs that I'd want to listen to for the rest of my life.
(Deserted island bullshit aside; seriously, if I can power a cd player, why the fuck can't I get off an island?)
I asked my husband what he thought and he said, "Oh, one song to listen to for the rest of my life? That's easy. 4:33."
Jerk.
If I'm going to talk about my "favorite" music, I can't not mention David Ford. Which is probably going to take a lot of (asides.) Sorry.
Aside #1: A few years back, the husband took me to the ballet for my birthday. I love the ballet. One of my best friends in high school was a dancer - my mom and I used to go watch her perform the nutcracker - and I always just loved it. She died on graduation night; she hadn't even been drinking, she just fell asleep at the wheel and went over the side of a bridge. Anyway, the husband took me to see Romeo and Juliet.
"On July 4, 2008, with the approval of the Prokofiev family and permission from the Russian State Archive, the original Prokofiev score was given its world premiere. Musicologist Simon Morrison, author of The People's Artist: Prokofiev's Soviet Years, unearthed the original materials in the Moscow archives, obtained permissions, and reconstructed the entire score. Mark Morris created the choreography for the production. The Mark Morris Dance Group premiered the work at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in New York state. The production subsequently began a year-long tour to include Berkeley, Norfolk, London, New York, and Chicago." -- wikipedia article
Aside #2 Now, keep in mind that I'm a russo-phile (Russian artwork, music, literature, hell, I even minored in Russian Studies, a subject that might have done me more professional good if I'd bothered to learn to SPEAK RUSSIAN instead of Chinese... don't look at me like that, the line was shorter...) and this was just one of the most perfect birthday presents ever.
So, the Norfolk center for the arts starts sending me stuff about upcoming shows. Including what I thought was a really clever marketing idea; a CD with one song from each of the upcoming performers for that season.
Concert tickets are pretty expensive, however, so we don't usually bother to go. I ripped the CD and promptly forgot about it. I don't even know that I listened to it that day.
Several months later, I load my phone up with a random playlist - grabbed about 200 songs - and went to the laundromat. I've got my laptop out and I'm plugging away at my latest story when this song comes on:
The volume is cranked on my headphones, I'm trying desperately to ignore the other people doing their wash, and this music just crashes over me like a crescendo of words and music and emotions. Holy shit. I stopped what I was doing, closed my eyes, and had a fucking religious experience, right there in the laundromat.
Seriously. Listen to it again. Turn the music up as loud as you can until you can't hear anything else. Close your eyes. Just feel it.
Wow.
You'll see opinion dressed as fact
See definitions inexact
And explain away the darkest days
As misinterpretation
The dumbing down, it's so uncouth
Like there's one single fucking truth
I couldn't bear that right and wrong
Could be so uncomplicated.
But I'd rather have some variety; so he's a random sampling of songs from my (as yet incomplete, but I have 46 songs on the list so far) Top 100
Black Velvet - Alannah Myles
Mohammed's Radio - Warren Zevon
She Said She was a Dancer - Jethro Tull
Ordinary World - Duran Duran
Birdhouse in your Soul - They Might Be Giants
Landslide - Fleetwood Mac
Non Je Ne Regrette Rein - Edith Pilaf
Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum
Alexandra Leaving - Leonard Cohen
The Speed of Pain - Marilyn Manson
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