The Daily Whim: Alphabetic iTunes

Fri. Jun 03, 2005

Alphabetic iTunes

I got it from Pat, who got it from Reecie, who got it from Knotted Knickers, etc. Yep, it’s a meme!

“Put your iTunes library in order alphabetically by song, then take the first song for each letter of the alphabet.” I added my own rule of not repeating an artist (Led Zeppelin kept coming up a lot)

The List (starts with symbols, ’ not “A”):
” ‘Til I Found You” – Susan Tedeschi
“A Better Place To be” – Harry Chapin
“Baba O’Riley” – The Who
“Cabin Down Below” – Tom Petty
“D.M.S.R.” – Prince
“Easy Street” – Jimmy Hall
“Fanfare for the Common Man” – Emerson Lake and Palmer
“Gee The Mule” – Guy Davis
“Hangin’ On” – Robert Lockwood
“I’ll Be Around” – Howlin’ Wolf
“James Bond Theme” – Brian Setzer Orchestra
“Kashmir” – Led Zeppelin
“Ladder” – Joan Osbourne
“Ma-Ma-Ma Belle” – Electric Light Orchestra
“N Word Rap” – Chris Thomas King
“O Skeewif Where Art Thou?” – Skeewif (electronica remix of “Man of Constant Sorrow”)
“Papa Don’t Take No Mess” – James Brown
“Quiet Afternoon” – Stanley Clark
“Rain in Spain” – Sea Level
“Saddle My Pony” – Taj Mahal and Hubert Sumlin
“T-Bone Shuffle” – Boz Scaggs
“Under My Wheels” – Alice Cooper
“Velcro Fly” – ZZ Top
“Walk Away” – Cheap Trick with Chrissie Hynde
X – None
“You Are In My System” – Robert Palmer
Z – None

Analysis? I’m an old fogey who likes dino-rock and the blues. It’s a fair cop, but the above isn’t really representative of the whole collection. There’s a lot of more eclectic selections, or as my wife puts it, “what in the hell are you listening to?” Over the years, and through many changes, I’ve noticed that I migrate towards music that has a real energy (and that can even be gospel), and more than just a nod towards melody and structure (not a big fan of most rap, or metal). I rarely enjoy ballads. Or country.

And when it comes to my digital music library, I am a total piker compared to Pat: “Just for the record, at the moment my iTunes library contains 5075 songs, which would take 13 days to play and take up 33.46 GB on my hard drive.” Wow, iTunes says I’ve got 1288 songs, that would play for 3.7 days, and eats 7.6 GB of my hard drive. I’m a quarter-Pat.

Later: How the meme spreads. Ben Weasel is doing it, and mentions that Dr. Frank is, too. Dr. Frank says he got it from Michele, and she says she got it from Timmer. Timmer got it from his site’s namesake, Sgt. Stryker. Who got it from me. I think we all might need a course of antibiotics now.

6 Comments below
Published 12:14AM, Fri, Jun 03 2005
Category: Music
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Peanut Gallery

1 Todd H. wrote:

”(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” – Rolling Stones
“100 Years” – Five for Fighting
“A Hard Days Night” – Beatles
“Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing” – Chris Isaak
“Califonia Dreaming” -Mamas & Papas
“Da Da Da” – Trio
“Ebudæ” – Enya
“Farmhouse” – Phish
“Games Wtihout Frontiers” -Peter Gabriel
“Happy Together” – Turtles
“I’ll Be Okay” – Amanda Marshall
“Jack And Diane” – John Cougar Mellencamp
“Kathy’s Song” – Simon & Garfunkel
“Lawyers, Guns and Money” – Warren Zevon
“Mama Told Me Not To Come” -Randy Newman
“Name” – Goo Goo Dolls
“Off and Running” – Lucy Kaplansky
“Paradise By The Dashboard Light” – Meat Loaf
Q – none
“Raised On Robbery” – Joni Mitchell
“Sad Lisa” – Cat Stevens
“Tainted Love” – Soft Cell
“Unchained Melody” – Righteous Brothers
“Vanilla Sky” – Paul McCartney
“Walk Like An Egyptian” – Bangles
X – none
“You’re A God” – Vertical Horizon
Z – none

Guess I’m gonna out-fogey you with that.. I found my collection is top-heavy with Beatles and Rolling Stones, with a fair dose of Warren Zevon for color. I’ll have to blame some of my stuff on the wife and kids (Lucy Kaplansky is the wife, though I find it pretty decent). 99% of my stuff is sucked off CDs, with a few odd songs hunted down and bought. Annoyingly, the Itunes store doesn’t carry anything by the Dave Matthews Band, I have to resort to Rhapsody for that (not a bad product, but getting that close to anything from the Realplayer folks gives me the heebie-jeebies).

Guess the only jarring thing in listening to Itunes for me is when it goes from Enya to Meatloaf. That’ll wake you up.

Comment by Todd H. · 06/03/05 01:24 PM

2 bill wrote:

sounds like a fun project. While I’m scrolling thru my iPod at work, here’s a couple other lists I made up awhile back.

The Edumacation playlist. Here’s a musical school day. Strong science program, though the overrepresentation of Malcom Mclaren should call into question the whole school. Could probably make this longer, but kept it to CD size.

School is important
Otis Redding PSA
Time to go!
Back to school, Pianosaurus
Period 1: Grammar, English
Alphabet Street, Prince
3A Essay, Hugh Gallagher
Period 2: Chemistry
The Elements, Tom Lehrer
Period 3: Applied Chemistry
Psychopharmacology, Grandpaboy
Period 4: Biology
F*ck the Creationists, MC Hawking
Period 5: Physics
Entropy, MC Hawking
Period 6: World Literature
Cyrano de Berger’s Back, X
Hamlet, John Wesley Harding
Moby Dick, Dread Zeppelin
Period 7: Algebra
Algernon’s Simply Awfully Good at Algebra, Malcolm Mclaren
Recess
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Announcements
School Closing, Second City

Extracurricula Activities

Driver’s Ed
Stickshifts and Safetybelts, Cake
Chorus practice
Madame Butterfly, Malcolm Mclaren
Inappropriate teacher/student interaction
Teacher’s Pet, Petty Booka
School Outcasts
The Chase, Juliana
I Remember Mike, Lynda Barry

*****************************************

The Educamation – Counting playlist. So I’m scrolling through my song list and notice that a good many start with numerals. Needed to buy 4 songs to complete 1-20.

Kiss Off, Violent Femmes
One of These Things First, Nick Drake
2 Days til Tomorrow, Paul Westerberg
Self Portrait in Three Colors, Charles Mingus
Friend is a Four Letter Word, Cake
Five O’clock Angel, Peter Wolf
Six Months in a Leaky Boat, Split Enz
Seven Deadly Sins, Flogging Molly
Figure Eights, Buddy Rich & Max Roach
9th & Hennepin, Tom Waits
Ten Commandments of Love, Harvey and the Moon Glows
11th Hour, Dionne Farris
A Dime a Dozen, Carla Thomas
$13,000 is a Lot of Money for Food, Skankin’ Pickle
14th Street, Rufus Wainwright
TVC 15, David Bowie
Twice Little Sixteen, Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans
Sexy and Seventeen, Stray Cats
Eighteen Hammers, Taj Mahal
Bored and Nineteen, Gear Daddies
20th Century Man, Ray Davies
New Math, Tom Lehrer

*********************
Now, if we’re just talking about songs prefaced with numerals, it goes something like this:

2 Days til Tomorrow, Paul Westerberg
4 out of 5, Soul Coughing
4th of July, X
5th Season, Paul Weller
7, Prince
7 Deadly Sins, Mary’s Danish
9th & Hennepin, Tom Waits
11 Years, Wolfgang Press
11:11, Rufus Wainwright
11th Hour, Dionne Farris
12D3, Gorillaz
14th Street, Rufus Wainwright
14th Street Blues, Leon Redbone
16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six, Tom Waits
20 Nothing, Skankin Pickle
25 minutes to go, S.W.A.T.
30 Seconds, Tracy Bonham
32-20 Blues, Robert Johnson
36-24-36, Violent Femmes
39, Cure
45, Elvis Costello
50 Ft. Queenie, PJ Harvey
52 Girls, The B-52’s
53 Miles West of Venus, The B-52’s
60 Miles an Hour, New Order
97 Bonnie & Clyde, Tori Amos
100 Dragons, Wallets
365 Days, Mighty Mighty Bosstones
911 is a Joke, Duran Duran
1952 Vincent Black Lightening, Richard Thompson
1994, Loudon Wainwright III
1999, Prince
2000 Miles, The Pretenders
2000, Gorillaz remixes
2001 Theme, Jimmy Sturr and his Polka Orchestra
6060-842, B-52’s

Comment by bill · 06/03/05 02:06 PM

3 bill wrote:

Analysis? As it’s only 28 songs out of 6,471, I’m not drawing too many conclusions. Just happy only one christmas showed up.
billg.

‘Round Every Corner, Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeans
2 Days Til Tomorrow, Paul Westerberg
A Baby Just Like You, John Denver and the Muppets
B.B.’s Blues, Branford Marsalis
C’est a Hamburg, Edith Piaf
D.M.S.R., Prince
E=MC, MC Hawking
Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song), Otis Redding
Gainesville, Randy Newman
H.A.R.M.A.R., Har Mar Superstar
I Ain’t Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again, Bonnie Raitt
Jack of Diamonds, Jesse Thomas
Ka-Ding Dong, The G-Clefts
L.A. Sunshine, WAR
Mach 1, Trailer Bride
Na Estrada, Marisa Monte
O Canada, Geddy Lee (South Park soundtrack)
Pissing in the Wind, Badly Drawn Boy
Queen Elvis, Robyn Hitchcock
Race Car Ya-Yas, Cake
Sack-O-Woe, Mar-Keys
T-Model Boogie, Rosco Gordon
U Could Get Arrested, Dream Warriors
Valarie, Starlites
Wahine ‘Ilikea, Cindy Combs
X-Ray, Ray Davies
Ya Got Trouble (In River City), Mandy Patinkin
Zaar, Peter Gabriel