a simple playlist

I think of music the way I think of any relationship; it has ups and it has downs.  It can set you shooting down a country road with the windows down, wind in your hair as you scream the lyrics at the tops of your lungs.  Conversely it can fill your ears as you lie curled on your bed, tears streaming down your face as you let the tones fill you up.  Powerful stuff, that is!  It's a wonder how when life starts getting crazy for me and things stop making sense in the way I feel they should, that a simple playlist turns it all back around.

Maybe that's because I have rockstar playlists?  I don't know.

Something's been missing from these blogs lately and I think over the last couple days I realized what it was.  Some heart... maybe a little soul, too.  Not soul in the James Brown sense, but in the "hey, I'm usually overly-emotional and it bleeds out into my words, sorry I haven't been," sense.  And I am sorry that I haven't been emotional... er... more interesting.  I think that emotion was part of the original charm of these blogs that you, my (mostly) faithful readers, came to expect.  But the last several blogs have only been about my 26 Golden Things and not the other bits of my day-to-day life that I like to think make me marginally interesting.  Well... very interesting.  I'll just come out and say what everyone is thinking ::tosses hair::

Yesterday I had dinner with @klreynol after a day that felt mostly wasted, and if there is one thing I hate more than girls who can't walk in high heels, it's wasted days off.  We were talking briefly about the blog I dutifully compose and she agreed that the stories therein were getting a little bit dry.  It's great to write about the things you commit to writing (as I have been,) but when they start feeling like a chore is when something has to change.

Lemme side-track you for a little second.

When I bought my iMac in June I was very hasty in lumping my conglomerate of music in the shiny new database and organizing it with iTuens.  Then i synced my iPod before haphazardly downloading Windows 8 on my laptop and effectively deleting the iTunes library on it.  Guess who didn't make copies of his playlists?  This tall son of a bitch right over here.

Back to it.


I have a couple playlists that continuously evolve, chief among them being the blatant "Newly Added" that has songs removed once they've been in for a month and then they are spread through the other lists.  Well I went on a CRAZY downloading spree and "Newly Added" turned into "Mish-mash of every type of music imaginable."  Except bluegrass... that has no business on my computer.  Never-the-less I've been listening to "Newly Added" in my car constantly and it started to get to me.

Usually my music is organized in a way that I can go to it for whatever mood I'm in.  "Fun!" "Mellow" "Mellow - Sad" "Hipsteresque" "Showtunes" "Before the 90's" and "Of the Most Soothing" to name a few.  There's also "Disney" but you get the picture.  Today on the drive to work I couldn't take it anymore and went for the only playlist that was already organized, simply because that is the theme of it and it has no purpose to be in the main music library.

"Christmas."

Yes, I'm one of those people.

I rocked out to Christmas music all the way to work and all the way home, a grand total of 54 minutes of drive time.  Most of the music was happy but I do have a few mopey Christmas songs, and as I was driving I found myself jumping back to the sad ones.  Then I realized the thing I was missing most was one of the playlists for that mood.  Not because I am sad, because I'm not at all.  It's just... because.

I think it's marvellous how listening to something you are craving can turn everything around.  Music to me almost acts as a mirror, and sometimes you can find a song that reflects the things you are thinking or feeling in a way that you don't quite know how to express.  What other medium can do that?  I suppose movies but everyone knows that!  It takes a bit more of a keen intellect to appreciate good music.  Not just the shit you hear on Kiss FM or something of the likes, but everything else.

How many of you have purchased a movie score simply to listen to the instrumental bits of a favorite film?  How many of you have gone on a wild downloading spree after watching a video on youtube and then clicking with reckless abandon on the video links running down the right side of the web page?  I have; I actually do it a lot.  How else are you going to find those hidden gems you otherwise never would have heard about?  Some of my favorite songs ever have never been played on the radio and I love that.

I don't love that it means the rest of the world won't ever get to hear it, but I love that I am one of a select group that gets to indulge in the tones.  Me and my freak memory can pinpoint where I first heard most of the songs in my iTunes library, either by movie or location.  And no, before you think it, not in an "alright, tell me where you were the first time you heard 'Tell Me What It Takes' by Aerosmith," way.  I associate music with certain times in my life.  My all-time favorite song is "Paint the Silence" by South, which I first heard while closing the American Eagle store in Appleton.

It happened to be on the soundtrack for season one of "The O.C."

I ran out and bought the album (one of the few compilation CD's where I still love every single song) and played it non-stop.  That was the summer of 2004, the best summer of my life, and everytime I hear "Paint the Silence" I am transported back to it in a way I can't describe.  The emotions of that summer, the happiness I had at being free of high school and fully coming out and everything that entailed.  Music does that for me.

I think it's important I keep my playlists fully-stocked, all the time.  This little event probably won't occur again until I buy another new computer, and even then I have certain safeguards in place to ensure it doesn't.  I've alrady tackled "Mellow - Sad," and I am so glad I did.  Maybe a little bit of self-reflection is what I need right now.  The days just keep getting hotter and the nights not really colder; this type of music tends to shift my focus towards fall which I suppose is just around the corner.

A few big events are quickly approaching in the next couple weeks, including but not limited to the day my best friend gets married and I have to share the title of soul-mate with her betrothed.  Those blogs will probably be pretty entertaining, re: emotional.  Huzzah for you!  I guess if I really wanted to make these more interesting I could just start taking my top off and posting the pictures more often.

But everyone knows that whores don't get a second chance.  Ciao!