Random Musings 2009

I did this in January last year, and I'm doing it again now. I know, what a wild and crazy guy I must be. Somebody stop me.

The rules are simple (and, once again, pinched from Word Magazine). Grab your iPod or other proprietary digital music player, assuming the Apple Company hasn't achieved total domination in your area of the universe. Hit the 'random' or 'shuffle' button. Note down the first five tracks that get selected.

No cheating, no avoiding the cheesy stuff and putting in only the hyper-cool tracks that mark you out as one of the musical cognoscenti. It's in your collection for a reason, so if "Achy Breaky Heart" makes its way to the surface you need to tell us about it.

This year I've upgraded to a spiffy 32G iPod Touch. Over 4,100 tracks of stuff to choose from. So what do we get?

Stevie Wonder - Higher Ground
OK, this is a good start. Fairly respectable, in fact. I'll admit it's from a 'Definitive Collection' compilation, so there was a distinct danger of getting "I Just Called To Say I Love You". We should all be thankful, therefore. Whenever that song gets played, God punches a kitten. Just so you know.

The Police - So Lonely
We haven't disgraced ourselves yet. As with the above-mentioned Mr Wonder, there are Police tracks that are more embarrassing. (And no, I'm not going to use the phrase 'criminal record'. Damn.) This track is infamous for being associated with the early 80's BBC newsreader Sue Lawley. By all accounts, at least one member of the band was in fact singing Ms Lawley's name in the chorus. Strange but true.

Jeff Buckley - Demon John
From "Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk", the album he didn't get to finish (or start, depending on your point of view). This has lines such as: "Why did you come here? Is it to excavate all your sins? Boil within? Slaughter like the daughter of the devil you send me. I have to deal, you called me here." So it's a party tune, then.

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
And we get the same artist two years running! This song is of course most famous for the accompanying video, filmed in one single shot, although Shara Nelson's spectacular hairdo rarely gets a mention. This song is also known as: "That One TV Producers Use As Background Music When They Want To Inject Some Gritty Urban Tension Into Something Mundane Like A Cookery Show".

Ben Folds Five - Army
I suspect this may be a guilty pleasure but I love this track unreservedly, together with pretty much all of Ben Folds' output (with and without the Five). Therefore I'm failing miserably when it comes to writing anything pithy or amusing about it. Although I have been known to play air piano in the car to BFF, if that's an image that pleases you. There is clearly no hope.

Now, all you readers, subscribers and lurkers, it's your turn. Do your own randomiser and list the first five tracks in a comment to this post. Or do your own blog post and include a link to it. Whatever.

As I said last year: "Go on, knock yourselves out".