Flashes of Panic

Remember the saying, “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it?”

I used to see various “pass it on” questions going around blogs I read, and wonder if anyone would think to pass them on to me. Then came the stick. Now it’s music, and Ralph has tapped me. And, as he noted, it would be rude…

Total volume of music on my computer:
Depends on the computer. There’s 23+ GB of music on my laptop; I suspect there’s some significant duplication in there, though. I carry an iPod back and forth between work and home to keep the bulk of my library available in both places; there’s 1.3 GB in the “music” folder here at work, but it’s not all actually music. (Long story; it’s work.)

Last CD I bought:
Ooh. The last CD I actually paid money for was probably part of a batch of used CDs I bought back in February, trying to replace all the cassettes I might otherwise be keeping from junior high years. (Most of my high school music I’ve long since bought on CD.) I got R.E.M.’s “Green,” INXS’s “Kick” and “The Swing,” and The Waterboys’ “Room to Roam.”

But the last CDs added to the collection were Kathleen Edwards’ “Back to Me” and Erin McKeown’s “Grand,” which were gifts from A.

And all of it has been swamped by the SXSW Showcase, which amounts to more than 10% of the songs on the iPod even though I’ve deleted over a hundred songs from it. I’m still trying to absorb it all and weed out the stuff I don’t like, and that’s kept me from feeling the itch to buy more.

Favorite song from that album:
Green: Orange Crush, of course.
Kick: Mystify.
The Swing: Dancing on the Jetty. (It’s really worth looking up some of the stuff INXS did before they got huge in the USA. The combination of Michael Farriss’ songs and Michael Hutchence’s voice is really, really impressive even now.)
Room to Roam: Worst. Waterboys. Album. Ever. I can’t believe they followed up Fisherman’s Blues with this stinker. I can get along with A Life of Sundays, though.
Back to Me: Oh, I like too much of it. I’ve got five favorites.
Grand: Probably Cosmopolitans.

Song playing now:
Look down. But a few others, while I write this, as well.

Songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot:
Oh, no, I can’t do this. I just looked in to the first page of the current playlist, and I could find vivid associations with nearly all of them. And I’ve given over my life to the iTunes “shuffle” feature (though I use an insanely complicated weighting system to ensure that the more I like a song, the more often it is played.)

Now, I’m supposed to pass this on to five people, but let’s face it, nobody I pick is going to be thrilled about it. So I’ll ask for volunteers. The first five people who track back to this post (or just tell me you’re doing it,) I’ll link here and pretend I invited you. Deal?

(Later, takers: Zee (so that’s where you are now!), Joe B… and I’ll cheat even more than Sherry by retroactively handing it on to her.)

Now Playing: Be My Enemy from This Is the Sea by The Waterboys