2 Years Later...

Today I filed my taxes. Better late than never, right? But that's the way life has seemed the last couple of years. I had every intention of keeping up this blog thing going, but something "always came up." Work, kids' afterschool activities, grading papers, avoiding work, marathon screenings of the entire series runs of Mad Men, Greek, and Dr. Who, sleep....

My original intent was to provide some kind of lasting memory for my kids (but really for me) of the truly important things in life. Pop culture. Great movies. Great music. Anything that might be asked on a game show. Bridging the Pop Culture Gap between my kids and the things they'll never learn in school but I thought were important. Pretty pretentious of me to think they would ever care about New Wave. Or Ferris Bueller. Or why Next Generation was so much better than the original Star Trek.

But isn't that what a blog is all about? Writing something that is really for yourself, thinking other people might care. And here I am...I'm back. If you're reading this, perhaps you care. Perhaps you're bored and thought this could pass some time. Or perhaps you're my wife wondering why I'm not doing something more productive. No matter. Thanks for reading.

The reason I'm back today is that I was listening to my iPod this afternoon, set for shuffle, and came across a song that I truly loved - "Blue Monday" by New Order. I realized that I've heard this song dozens, perhaps hundreds of times on my shuffle and it hit me that I'd never hit the skip button, always listening to the entire track. Never even realized I loved it so much...but clearly I do.

It got me thinking of the whole Desert Island Discs lists that were so popular in the Tower Records magazine in the '80's (and stolen from the BBC). "Blue Monday" clearly would be one of my DID's. So tonight I worked up my DID list, and couldn't narrow it to less than 30 tracks...but out of 4091 songs in Julia and my iTunes list, that's not too bad.

What else is on that list? Some obscure songs, a few classics, and a lot of songs in between. Even a song that's on the charts now, that may not stay on the list...but for now it is. They're not really my DID's, but actually my perfect iPod playlist. What do you think?

(Not in any particular order other than when I found them in iTunes
1. Battle Flag – Lo-Fidelity AllStars
2. Blue Monday – New Order
3. Down by the Water – PJ Harvey
4. Fell in Love with a Girl – The White Stripes
5. Add it Up – Violent Femmes
6. Hate to Say I Told You So – The Hives
7. Light and Day – The Polyphonic Spree
8. Last Night – The Strokes
9. Longview – Green Day
10. Secret is Sharer – Clare Quilty
11. Steady as She Goes – The Raconteurs
12. That’s Entertainment – The Jam
13. Velvet Pants – Propellerheads
14. American Idiot – Green Day
15. Cantaloop - US3
16. Dear God - XTC
17. Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles
18. Foundations – Kate Nash
19. Nightswimming – R.E.M.
20. Hometown Glory – Adele
21. Janglin – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
22. Live and Let Die – Original McCartney or G&R version
23. Money (That’s What I Want) – The Flying Lizards
24. Power – Kanye West
25. Rocketman – The Red Elvises
26. Santa Monica – Everclear
27. Somebody That I Used to Know – Gotye feat. Kimbra
28. Sympathy for the Devil – The Rolling Stones
29. Territorial Pissings – Nirvana
30. Violet – Hole

I know, I know...some of this stuff is pretty crappy in other people's minds. But there's something about each of these songs that makes them practically "skip-proof." They're not necessarily the best songs by these artists, but they're the ones that work for me. I tried to keep it to one song per artist, but Green Day and Jack White appear more than once. I can live with that, even if it violates the first rule of mixed tapes.

OK, you've made it this far...I'll try to keep up my postings, and I expect that I'm the only one who really cares if I do...but if you like what I wrote, or it makes you think of your own list, well I'm happy to help.