Musical Cars.

Most great works of art have a theme which holds them together.  This one doesn't.  Harry Chapin, "30,000 Pounds of Bananas"

I have written a fair amount about music, what I listen to, what I think.  I guess you could say it is an important subject for me, albeit from the perspective of a middle-aged white woman who tends to be set in her ways.  In fact, this entire post may be completely redundant.  So feel free to skip this.


Libra: A big promotion is just around the corner for someone much more talented that you; Laughter is the very best medicine, remember that when your appendix bursts next week, Weird Al Yankovic, "Your Horoscope for Today"

Music is an important consideration in my choice of vehicles. I have been known to decide which car to drive based on which of our older cars has a functioning stereo at the time.  (The green Mazda, which is my preferred vehicle, has a flaky MP3 player, which is very good when it functions, but has an annoying tendency to short out when you're miles away from home.  Then again, the car has over 200,000 miles on it.)  You know how some people smoke when they drive?  I have to sing along with the stereo. 

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary; When troubles come and my heart burdened be; Then, I am still and wait here in the silence, Until you come and sit awhile with me.
Josh Groban, "You Raise Me Up."

Singing makes driving easier, even possible on some days.  I hate driving people in my car I am not related to because then I can't sing. (I never feel compelled to sing in other people's cars, unless they are singing.) It just doesn't feel right. It raises my stress level.  If I'm sleepy, driving without music makes me even more so. 

Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?  "Will I", from  Rent.

I like having a variety of music in the car.  I know that I have little hip-hop and no rap, and I save instrumental music for times when I'm not driving. I have not found much rap or hip-hop I like, anyway, which may be a cultural and generational thing as much as anything else. 

So I own not a notion, I escape and ape content; I don't own emotion, I rent... "What You Own," from Rent.

But many other genres are fair game: country, rock, pop, gospel, folk, Broadway. (Speaking of gospel, let me just say right now, that if there is a heaven, and if I get there someday, I fully expect God to look and sound like Aretha Franklin.) 

It's astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll, "The Time Warp," from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

With the MP3 player in the Mazda, I am not limited to 22 songs -- I can put four times that many on a CD to play.  So I tend to pick a much more varied selection of songs.  Which is great, sort of. 

At night I could hear the blood in my veins , Black and whispering as the rain,  Bruce Springsteen, "The Streets of Philadelphia"

I do not have a rational, musical reason for the selection of songs I put on any given CD (except for my Great Big Sea mixes) -- they can run the gamut of styles and subject matter.  I do sometimes make mixes with songs with all the same tempos, but that is the exception rather than the rule. The other members of my family hate this, because I have a whole lot of CDs in the car labeled with the date and n of n, and they have no clue what's on them.  Neither do I, for that matter, but I don't care.  I do occasionally do a theme mix: "Numbers," Geography" and my favorite, "Occupationally Speaking." 

But that's just a lot of water, underneath a bridge I burned; and there's no use in backtracking around corners I have turned, Trisha Yearwood, "The Song Remembers When"

I sort my mixes either through iTunes shuffle or alphabetically by title (either forward or back), which serves much the same function.  This presents a bit of a problem: listening to the songs fully requires a certain level of emotional and cognitive shape-shifting.  Because my  music will veer from topic to topic, often eliciting the comment "Umm, interesting segue there, Mom," the change in mood can be extreme.  You think it is a jump from Weird Al to Josh Groban, or even worse, from "Time Warp" to "Streets of Philadelphia" ? On "Occupationally Speaking," I had a segue from "Prince of Darkness" by the Indigo Girls to "Dentist!" from Little Shop of Horrors.  The emotional transition was severe enough I usually would skip one song or the other, depending upon what mood I was in that day. 

I'll eat when I get hungry and I'll drink when I get dry; Get drunk whenever I'm ready, get sober by and by, Great Big Sea, "River Driver"

I'm not sure what the answer is to this, or even if I need an answer to this.  If nothing else, I could turn my iTunes over to the Not-So-Little-Drummer-Boy, who is very good at  mixing music, and once he stopped laughing, let him create my mixes. 

Is it too much to demand, I want a full house and a rock-and-roll band?  Pens that don't run out of ink, cool quiet and time to think? Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Passionate Kisses"

I'm having a hard time ending this post.  Most posts have a theme which holds them together.  This one doesn't.  Other than if you see me tooling down the street, singing, and my mood seems to shift, it's not that I'm crazy, just that alphabetical imperative and its resulting change of song have hit hard.