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May 2006

Return: The Music

by Jim Bliss

I decided to go hunting for a musical blog meme. See, for reasons which are too dull to explain, I’ve had no music on my PC hard-drive for a couple of months. Now however I’ve finally restored my collection from back-up in my first-generation Creative BigBrick mp3 player (once in while a piece of technology comes along that may as well have been custom-designed for me… the first 40GB hard-drive mp3 player; the Creative Jukebox; was one such item. Four years on it’s still doing the business).

Now, because I have pretty much all my music on CD, I’ve not been listening to less music lately, but I have been listening in a subtly different way. When I’m listening to CDs, I’ll usually decide what I want to hear before I wander over to the CD collection. And I’ll tend to listen to the entire album; often several times; before putting on something else.

With almost a thousand albums digitised on my hard-drive, though, the selection process is very different. Some mornings I’ll just hit “shuffle” and wait until something catches my mood. Sometimes I’ll be in the middle of an album and I’ll notice another one close by due to an accident of alphabetisation and get the urge to hear it. Obviously, there’s still plenty of times when I’m in the mood for something specific… afternoons when – quite frankly – only Sign ‘O’ The Times will do. Nonetheless, like is so often the case, the medium influences the experience.

And so – in celebration of the restoration of my music – I struck out across the frozen datascape of the worldwide internet in search of a music meme that would take advantage of that fact. With my own blogroll as the starting point, I took the quickest route I could find to a livejournal site (the primordial ooze from whence all blog memes emerge). Glancing down the page I discovered this post. Paydirt.

If the meme fits…

Step 1: Put your media-player on random play.
Step 2: Write down the first line from the first 20 songs that play.
Step 3: Let everyone guess what song the lines come from.
Step 4: Cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

What could be easier? Guesses can be left in the comments.

  1. It’s hard when folks can’t get their work where they’ve been bred and born. – Christy Moore: Dalesman’s Litany – Rob
  2. I was nothing. It didn’t matter to me.
  3. Ya know one day the indigenous people of the Earth are gonna reclaim what’s righfully theirs. – Spearhead: Of Course You Can – Gyrus
  4. Jesus will you pity this insomniac, it’s almost dawn, there’s nothing on TV – The Legendary Pink Dots: Chainsurfing – Lucas
  5. Lord knows we’ve become scientific
  6. Procession moves on, the shouting is over – Joy Division: The Eternal – Pisces Iscariot
  7. I see the clouds that move across the sky – Talking Heads: Don’t Worry About The Government – Phil
  8. While riding on a train going west, I fell asleep for to take my rest – Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan’s Dream – Nick
  9. He moves efficiently, beyond security – R.E.M.: Airportman – Gyrus
  10. Don’t talk of dust and roses – David Bowie: Big Brother – Pisces Iscariot
  11. Everyday you must say, “so how do I feel about my life?” – The Smiths: Accept Yourself – Phil
  12. Couldn’t sleep a wink last night, Oh how I’d love to hold you tight – Roxy Music: Pyjamarama – Phil
  13. No shit Sherlock, the gun is loaded and primed – Julian Cope: Don’t Call Me Mark Chapman – Justin
  14. I didn’t die for my country, I didn’t die for my roast beef – Philip Jeays: The Soldier – Merrick
  15. When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide – The Beatles: Helter Skelter – Justin
  16. Don’t want to be free of hope
  17. Pardon me, I wanna talk 2 U – Prince: Do It All Night – Jez
  18. Fell into a sea of grass, and disappeared among the shady blades – Jane’s Addiction: Summertime Rolls – Gyrus
  19. The Sunday morning gospel goes good with a song – The Beach Boys: Add Some Music To Your Day – Nick
  20. As soon as I wake up every day, I look at the papers to see what they say

Wow… it really brought home how many instrumental tracks I have (skipped). Oh, and also just how many tracks contain the title in the first line (skipped). I also skipped multiple tracks from the same artist (the “random” function on media-player seemed to have a bit of a thing for Bowie tonight). Anyways, some are easy, some are very obscure. Any ideas?

Oh, and we can all use google. Obviously look up the answers if you’re curious, but if you want to post a response, try to be honest.


Posted in: Blog meme