My Playlist Part I

This post is going to be HUGE. It will take me days, nay weeks to probably complete. Or maybe not, but we'll see.

iTunes, for those of you living in a cave, is a bit of software to store Mp3's or music files if that suits your technobabble better. You can download music for a fee off of iTunes or you can copy your own CD's and create little things called "Playlists" which is exactly what it sounds like: a playlist of music you want grouped together. All this then can be transfered to your Mp3 player - ideally an iPod of some kind.

I was perusing some of the Celebrity Playlists and to my non-shock, the celebrity whose playlist i liked the best was Sarah MacLachlan. The most common artists in the playlists, ironically, were ColdPlay and U2. Anyway, so I decided to take the 3.6GB of music (that's 946 songs taking up 3 days of my life should I listen straight through) and create my own playlist.

Here it is - my 3.1 hours of perfect music (that I've up and down loaded anyway), in the order the iTunes shuffled it:

1. Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
I think this might be one of the most perfect songs ever. It puts me into a trance as soon as I hear it a and I can never, ever tnd the first image that pops in my mind are 25,000 heads bobbing at Montreal's Olympic Stadium. It's a bloody fantastic song.

2. Viva Forever - The Spice Girls
I can't resist this song either - it harkens memories of driving down Spanish highways in Jamon The Neon, through the parched Andalucian countryside, el Toro's perched on the hilltops, crystal clear nights with starry skies and Casa de Carmona. Some trips change your life. This one did and this song reminds me that change is always possible.

3. Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
This is one of those You Had To Be There moments, and there's probably only about seven people in the world who were there. So I'll just say this: Chicago's Ritz Carlton Hotel, Karaoke, Cowboy Hats, Bono defers a spotlight, The Edge and a Midnight Serenade. Good times never, ever seemed so good.

4. The Only Living Boy In New York - Simon & Garfunkel
This is just one of those songs that are great to listen to driving down an American interstate at dusk, windows rolled down and a bit of dust rolling in.

5. Sex Bomb - Tom Jones & Mousse T
Right, talk about hard to explain. Is this not the ultimate Eurotrash song? This song brings back vivid memories of Interlaken (Switzerland), sitting in a parking lot in a Volkswagen Passat and staring at the Blaupunkt radio thinking, "Do the Swiss really LIKE this song?" This song was THE anthem of that trip to Switzerland. Gruezie shout out to Lil Dude & The Kid on this one.

6. Wires - Athlete
This is is just a beautiful song about the lead singer's baby who was born with complications and had to stay in the hospital. I guess I feel an affinity to it since I was a newborn with complications myself. It reminds me of the stories my dad and grandmother tell me.

7. Take A Picture - Filter
Though the official song of Tuscany 2K (a trip of sixteen brainiacs to the Italian Countryside) was "Hotel California", this song actually creates in my memory a scrapbook of our rented villa - Podere Ripucce. I see everyone in a grand blur of snapshots - Sage Lili, Viceroy Tamara, Magistrate Neil, Dame Jordan, Sarah The Kid, Sultan Mike, Farm Boy Matt, Count Adam, Maestro Roars, Duchess Samantha, Lady Mary Ellen, Sheriff Joe, Sorceress Julie, Marquis Mark (hahaha), HRH Raj and yours truly, Principessa.

8. Life In A Northern Town - The Dream Academy
Though the Northern Town in this song is somewhere in northern England, it brings to life my own northern town, Johnsburg Illinois. Images of snow on elm and hickory trees, frozen ponds and stalks of broken corn and a Metra train steaming by - those are my images of Life in A Northern Town.

9. The Mummers Dance - Loreena McKennitt
This song makes me want to learn bellydancing. But really, it's a song that inspires me to dream of exotic places I've been and dream of going to.

10. Why - Annie Lennox
This is one of the most vulnerable, naked vocals by a female rock singer ever. Annie Lennox is just an amazing singer and this song is the whisper so many women hear in the back of their head.

11. Street Spirit (Fade Out) - Radiohead
For such intensely personal reasons this song is on my list. But it's a beautiful, intelligent, fragile song that's worth knowing and hearing. The lyrics are worth reading, evocative without the music.

12. Extreme Ways - Moby
Aside from my love of Moby and Matt Damon - of which the movie The Bourne Identity brought together - this song evokes images of driving on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago, riding my bike through the swamps, or even sitting at a traffic light outside of Downtown Disney. This song is just the bomb.

13. Chocolate - Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol is quickly becoming one of my favourite bands of recent days. In fact, I was more interested in seeing them in Dublin than U2. This song is just really good and unfortunately reminds me excessively of the intersection of Celebration Place and US 192. Wish I knew why.

14. New Slang - The Shins
In the movie, Garden State, Natalie Portman says this song will change your life. Not quite but it's one of those songs you imagine playing somewhere all the time and you just pick up on it for a minute before skating along with your life. It's a great song for a misfit.

15. Baby It's Cold Outside! - Dean Martin
Perfect for cocoa, a roaring fire and twinkle lights. And well, maybe just a cigarette more! ;-)