Jan 9, 2011

iPod Shuffle

This comes courtesy of So Now What - with thanks.
Instructions: put your fruit-flavoured or other brand MP3 player on Shuffle, and write down the first 15 songs that come on, and what they mean to you (if anything).

Now the temptation here is obviously to scroll through your songs and pick the 15 most interesting, and chuck in one embarassing one to make it look honest - or you can do it properly.

I considered the first then went with the second. But you'll just have to take my word on that won't you?


1.Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Yes, I admit it - I got this from Twilight. I actually really liked the first Twilight movie - very moody and evocative, and great soundtrack. Well I've gone off the soundtrack a bit since, but still love this and one other song on it, Full Moon by The Black Ghosts.

2. Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna
I honestly have no idea what this one is or how it got here. Do not recognise it at all. It's quite good though.

3. Slade - Everyday
This is a song from my childhood. It was big on the radio when I was a little kid and my dad went away quite often on business. I loved the song and/or he used to sing it to me - I'm not sure which came first. Anyway at some point my parents realised I loved this song and my dad bought the single. I still remember how happy he was when he started to play it for me and then I cried, his face fell and both my parents were surprised (disappointed?) at my reaction. I'm not sure but think it had something to do with feeling a bit overwhelmed with both their attention focussed on me for a reaction and confusion hearing a song on our stereophonic record player that I associated with the tinny sound of the radio - but anyway I burst into tears. I still remember it and I now have a pretty good understanding with my own kids of what can set that kind of reaction off, just generally too much attention and build up of excitement.... Kids, eh!
But I still love the song.

4. Giorgos Alkaios & Friends - Opa (Eurovision 2010 - Greece)
Well, what can I say. I liked it.
My husband is from Greece and they take Eurovision VERY seriously there, there is not the irony-ladden aspect to it that we use to watch it in the English-speaking world.
In our house we watch Eurovision as a family for the two nights it's on, all four if us sitting on the couch or the girls dancing in front of the TV, and we all judge the songs and pick our favourites and laugh at and pan the shockers, and naturally the outcomes rarely agree with any of our opinions.
I also have ANOTHER Greece Eurovision entry on my iPod, My Secret Combination by Kalomoira.
I know it's not that good, but I like it - and who can't like Kalomoira, she's so cute!

5. Will.I.Am - I Like to Move It
I actually prefer the The Travelling Song, which I also have. Both from the Madagascar soundtracks. I love the Madagascar movies, possibly even more than my kids do.

6. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart
Are you kidding me?! The epitome of iPod embarassment and it actually came on in my 15??
I was tempted to skip past this and not count it, but then this is the point of the whole exercise, right? To create an even playing field of lameness among all iPod users. We all have our shame.
Everyone loved this song (without irony) when it came out in the 80s, and I remembered it a few years ago when it appeared in the movie Urban Legend, where the first girl to get killed sings badly to it listening to her car radio to cheer herself up, before getting decapitated by the person hiding in the back of her car. Not sure how the killer managed to stabilise and stop the car after doing this but no matter...

7. Prince - Cream
I loved Prince throughout the nineties. Only this song has stood the test of time in my music library. LOVE IT.

8. INXS - Need You Tonight
80s, 80s, 80s!!! Loved this whole album, and saw INXS three times in concert  - once in Portugal while backpacking, sort of a weird interlude. In 2003 I was backpacking around Europe with my cousin and her friend, and after weeks of fairly good penny pinching we fell in with an American physiotherapist on a two week holiday from New York, who clearly made very good money and who was also a lot of fun and very persuasive. We ended up living things up in Portugal and spending as if we were also high-paid New York professionals instead of the penniless 23-year olds we were. What with beers and dancing till late most nights and going to see INXS at their Lisbon concert, we cleaned out our budget for the next four weeks, in four days. Those were great days though!

Another memory: I bought this album through my sister's record club membership, and still remember how she got my order wrong and ticked the box for the album instead of the casette. I was initially annoyed but was happy when the album came, because then I taped it and then, CHOICE, I had both!

9. Tone-Loc - Funky Cold Medina
C'mon - who doesn't like this? 80's again. I fear I am betraying my age (as if this blog wasn't doing that for me). Also somewhere on my playlist, Wild Thing, from the same album. All that's missing to round off the era is Young MC's Busta Move!

10. Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before
I have the entire Grace Jones Island Life album on my iPhone, and indeed still have the casette rattling round somewhere. Love the whole thing but this song and La Vie en Rose especially.
I think I may have discovered this song and the album Island Life from the Harrison Ford movie Frantic, which I thought was a great movie at the time but which I otherwise don't remember.
So weird about Grace Jones - not sure exactly what she was or what she represented, but this album was pretty cool.

11. Jill Barber - Old Flame
Not one of my faves but I do like this whole album. My favourite song on it is Oh My My.


12. Giannis Kotsiras - Anathema Se
This is one of a few albums in here where my and my husband's playlists got entangled when I tried to move libraries from our old desktop to my laptop; I have left them there because I like to listen to them sometimes. This is a beautiful song - a decent translation courtesy of http://lyricstranslate.com is included at the end of this post.


13. Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer
I was never a Peter Gabriel fan in the 80s - probably a bit too mature and intelligent for my tastes back then - but a casual comment from my sister about how Solisbury Hill is one of her favourite songs, lead me to think "Oh yeah, I quite like that song", then to seek out and download about 10 Peter Gabriel songs that I suddenly found I really really liked.
I remember about this one how technologically amazing the video clip was at the time - we were in awe! It's not much now but a glimpse does bring back the memory of how unbelievable it was back then.


14. Dolly Parton - Joelene
When I was a kid for some reason I loved the Olivia Newton John version of this song. Not sure why the lyrics should speak to an eight-year-old girl, but somehow they did, something about a girl knowing she was out of her depth and unable to hold her own against others - perhaps that is a common childhood feeling. Or perhaps, as a girl you internalise the various lessons that come your way in pop culture and life, about what it means to be a woman, how a woman should look and act and what and what not to do (unfortunately the lessons are not all equally useful, valid or effective).
Even now the image of a woman tormented by knowlege that her husband is falling for someone else and she is powerless to stop it, is incredibly sad to me.

15. Bobby Darin - Dream Lover
I'm not sure how I came across this song, possibly one of my parents' several 45's I used to listen to as a kid. But I have always loved this song.
That was a good thing about having young parents (sorry kids!) - my parents were really into their music and had heaps of LPs and singles, and used to play them often. (They also used to go out quite a bit and were sometimes short on patience with us - another mark of young parents). Anyway, along with Neil Diamond's Shilo album, this song was one of the first I loaded to my iPod when my mind turned to golden oldies.


Here are the tunes if you don't know them -

1.Muse - Supermassive Black Hole



The Black Ghosts - Full Moon
 

2. Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna


3. Slade - Everyday

4. Giorgos Alkaios & Friends - Opa (Eurovision 2010 - Greece)

Kalomoira - My Secret Combination

5. Will.I.Am - I Like to Move It

The Travelling Song

6. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart

7. Prince - Cream

8. INXS - Need You Tonight

9. Tone-Loc - Funky Cold Medina

Wild Thing

10. Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before


La Vie en Rose


11. Jill Barber - Old Flame

Oh My My



12. Giannis Kotsiras - Anathema Se

13. Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

14. Dolly Parton - Joelene

15. Bobby Darin - Dream Lover





Anathema Se lyrics and translation:

Damn you


Artist: Pantelis Thalassinos

Song: Anathema se

Translation: Greek → English

Submitted by veronika_pooh on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 20:26 - http://lyricstranslate.com/en/Anathema-se-Damn-you.html


Greek

Anathema se

Σ' έχω ώρες ώρες μα το Θεό

τόσο πολλή ανάγκη

που τρέχουν απ' τα μάτια μου

θάλασσες και πελάγη



Στείλε ένα γράμμα μια συλλαβή

αν έχεις το Θεό σου

που κρέμομαι απ' τα χείλη σου

κι είμαι στο έλεός σου



Ανάθεμά σε δε με λυπάσαι

που καίγομαι και λιώνω

που μ' έκανες και σ' αγαπώ

και τώρα μαραζώνω



Κλειδώθηκαν οι σκέψεις μου

μες στου μυαλού τα υπόγεια

αχ πόσα θέλω να σου πω

και δεν υπάρχουν λόγια



Ανάθεμά σε δε με λυπάσαι

που καίγομαι και λιώνω

που μ' έκανες και σ' αγαπώ

και τώρα μαραζώνω

English

Damn you

Hour by hour, by God,

I need you so

that from my eyes there run

seas and oceans.



Send one letter, one syllable,

if you still have a God,

to me who am hanging from your lips

and who am at your mercy.



Damn you, you have no pity for me,

who am burning up and melting,

you caused me to love you

and now I am withering away.



My thoughts are locked away

in the dungeons of my mind

Oh so many things I want to say to you,

and no words exist.



Damn you, you have no pity for me,

who am burning up and melting,

you caused me to love you

and now I am withering away.

From: http://lyricstranslate.com

7 comments:

  1. That's a pretty wild and varied selection there and seeing as Love Chunks and eleven year old Sapphire are part of my iTunes library I'll preface my fifteen with IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT:

    Photograph - Def Leppard. My fault, actually. Blame it on 'Animal' from 1988 and copying someone's Best of CD.

    My Blanket and Me - Charlie Brown musical cast recording. Me again.Bought it on a whim because I remember loving it as a child. Hasn't dated particularly well.

    ABC news theme by Peter Wall and Tony Ansell. Funked up version bought by Sapphire. I've always hated the theme and wondered why anyone would think it deserved any modernising.

    Food for thought - UB40. Don't remember this actual song, but have their best of which has been played many times as background music at dinner parties.

    Twenty five Quid by the Saw Doctors. Best Irish band EVER.

    You'll never know - 1927. Like some of your songs, this betrays my eighties roots. Literally.

    I think you know - Hoodoo gurus.Love the Gurus!

    If I had you - The Carpenters. NOT mine; given to Sapphire by a well-meaning but slightly out of date relative.

    Distant Memories - James Horner (Titanic Soundtrack). Bought by Sapphire after we let her watch the movie a month ago. Seeing it 12 years later with a kid who got completely hooked into the story was pretty lovely actually.

    Two Tribes - Frankie goes to Hollywood. An album I had to find on iTunes after my 1984-bought tape wore out.

    Mistakes - Brian McFadden and Delta Goodrem. Mine, not Sapphire's. My only excuse is that I need poppy stuff that's fast enough to run to.

    Wild Women Do - Natalie Cole. Not a song I like but from the Pretty Woman Soundtrack I bought on CD in 1990. Daggy now, but at the time we were all blown away, admit it!

    My heart will go on - Celine Dion. SAPPHIRE all the way.

    Train of thought - Gyan. Lovely Aussie singer who didn't get the kudos she deserved in 1990 or so

    Hold on Girl - the monkees. Mine, from a $5 bargain bin 'best of' years ago. Cute to listen to.

    There! Now I'd better go and hang out the washing, take the dog for a walk and do a bit of writing.....

    ReplyDelete
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  3. Wow Kath, that's a pretty eclectic selection too! (Hey say ECLECTIC SELECTION really fast...)
    You have reminded me I must seek and download some Pogues - speaking of great Irish bands! I was very into them in the 90s and still love a few songs.
    Wild Women Do - yeah, fair call!
    My Heart Will Go On - I have a secret soft spot for this one, I thought it was BEEYOODIFOOL when the movie came out, and still quite like it... There I said it...

    Dan: are you spamming me? Cool! That makes my first one!! I'll check out your site ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was reading this thinking - yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard most of these in your kitchen at some stage. All I know about the shuffle on my iPod is that it has to play Radiohead's Paranoid Android at least ever three song. And I don't even like it that much.... Will nick this idea if you don't mind.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Go for it Panda - it's there for the taking!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi JK,

    Caught Pandora's 15 tracks, so I thought I would have a look at yours too - before having a go myself in due course (I have 5500ish songs on my mp3 player!!). Thoughts:

    (1) I am a huge fan of Muse - top tune!
    (2) Strange title. Ok tune.
    (3) Noddy Holder comes from my home town. Nice tune (takes me back).
    (4) Reminds me of holidays in Greece.
    (5) Oh dear!! Not my cup of tea at all.
    (6) I love this song. Reminds of university.
    (7) I like some stuff by Prince - but not this one, sadly.
    (8) Absolute gem. Brings back fabulous memories.
    (9) Not my cup of tea.
    (10)Strange - very strange.
    (11) Not heard this before - not my cup of tea.
    (12) Reminds me of Greek holidays.
    (13) Top tune! Top video!
    (14) I'm not a big fan of country - but my Dad was a huge an of Dolly Parton.
    (15) Again - another of my Dad's favourite. A bit before my time.

    Great idea for a post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks PM,
    I will look forward to your list!

    ReplyDelete

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