06 Dec 2006
Name My Playlist
I don't very often make playlists in iTunes, because I primarily use it to feed my iPod and I don't mind just listening randomly to everything on that. But I've started to listening to iTunes more when I'm working in the office at home, and I fancied something a bit more... tailored.
I started out with a particular feel of song in mind, and manually constructed a playlist around that feeling. It's not a particular genre, but -- for me at least -- the songs I chose formed something quite coherent. They weren't just a random selection of songs. When I came to name the playlist, I realised that I couldn't put a name to that coherence. In a spirit of curiosity, laziness, and really wanting my playlist to have a name, I'm opening it up to you: Name My Playlist (like Pimp My Ride, but with less chrome and no Hip-Hop).
This is a small (but fairly random and representative) sample of the entire 54 song playlist. I have quite eclectic taste in music, so the chance is that not everyone will know all the songs listed, and even then you might not have any idea what I'm getting at, but I live in hope. Here it is:
- Possession by Sarah McLachlan
- Personal Jesus by Johnny Cash
- Hard Time Killing Floor Blues by Skip James
- Walk This World by Chris Wood
- Cheers Darlin' by Damien Rice
- I Just Don't Believe You by Jeff Hanson
- Intoxicated by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
- Summertime by Janis Joplin
- Hallaig by Martyn Bennett
- Dick's Slow Song by Tindersticks
- My Lagan Love by Kate Bush
- Beatrice by Daniel Lanois
- Slip Away by Laurie Anderson
- Wonderful World by Nine Horses
- Fruit Tree by Nick Drake
- Walking Song by Meredith Monk
- Revelator by Gillian Welch
- Orovela by The Tsinandali Choir
If you fancy making a suggestion, post your playlist title in the comments. There are no prizes (or correct answers, for that matter), but huge respect and cultural kudos to anyone who gets close to hitting the nail on the head according to my own arbitrary and idiosyncratic criteria.
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Bsag's Bag? <u>VIII</u> Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.' Sorry about that, just been to the doctor's for my Shakespeare booster shot....... Unless you know why a person's choice of music is important to them, like quicksilver from a broken thermometer the key eludes the unknowing. Liked the bookbinding video, takes me back over 50 years to my bookbinding project pre 11+. Which reminds me, I showed my 22 year old daughter an 11+ Arithmetic Paper the other day; she took one look and said "No way!" (A little less politely than that, a phrase which seemed to end in "awf")by Jonathan Briggs @ 06/12/2006 10:20 pm • Permalink
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Sh*t, forgot the carriage returns! Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'by Jonathan Briggs @ 06/12/2006 10:26 pm • Permalink
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I only know a couple of the songs, but I'll take a guess. I imagine it's music that's warm and comforting, and which makes you tingle during a thunderstorm. Music that seems to follow your body's own rhythm while you concentrate on living in the now - working with a flow from within. If that's the case, then I suggest Inner Flow, Rhythmic Flow, Inner Rhythm or simply Flow. If not, then I don't!by David (TEFL Smiler) @ 06/12/2006 11:44 pm • Permalink
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Emotion and Devotionby Helge André Gudmundsen @ 07/12/2006 12:00 am • Permalink
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I'd call it 'and the living is easy'7
I'd just call it "Cool as f**k" But then, I'm rude, and swear *far* too much...8
Homespun? As in 'spun' at home? I'll get me coat...9
I went to www.last.fm and looked up Wonderful World. There it had these tags, eintauchen und geniessen, fox, gruuv yahut muzik nasil yurur, melancholische klangwelten, nice, & plotters songs. I think I fancy melancholische klangwelten, or maybe just klangwelten, even though I don't really know what it means, just because of its musical sound. PS Is there a prize?
by ThoughtBadger @ 07/12/2006 12:56 pm • Permalink
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Daniel Wickes: I've never heard Stephen Fretwell before, but I listened to a clip on iTunes, and 'Rose' would fit pretty well in that playlist. I might have to check out Fretwell, too. Jonathan Briggs: Good, though not very descriptive
I love the quote though - one of the sonnets? And I think that you might be right that no-one else can really know what I hear in the songs, any more than I could know what others hear in them.
David (TEFL Smiler): Actually, quite a lot of the songs are slightly melancholy rather than comforting, though I find that oddly comforting in itself (if that makes any sense at all).
Helge André Gudmundsen: Not bad! Emotion certainly, and devotion in all its forms.
Jed: Interesting. See my comment to David.
Lyle: Hehe :-D
ThoughtBadger: No prize, I'm afraid (see my comments at the end of my post). I looked up a few of your phrases on babelfish, and 'eintauchen und geniessen' translates as 'dive in and enjoy', and 'melancholische klangwelten' translates as 'melancholische sounding worlds' (which may have lost a little something in machine translation).
This has been pretty interesting -- thanks everyone! Reading your suggestions, and thinking about it more, melancholy (though sweet melancholy) is certainly a component, but it's a bit more than that. Jed's suggestion made a line from a Kate Bush song pop into my head: "Life is sad, and so is love". It sounds a little trite written down like that, but in the context of the feeling of the song and the way Kate sings it, it gets quite close to what I'm trying to capture.
by bsag @ 07/12/2006 5:36 pm • Permalink
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Another attempt, then: Birmingham Blues? (Or is that too football-based?!)by David (TEFL Smiler) @ 07/12/2006 11:03 pm • Permalink
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memories13
languid autumns?by Adam Lindsay @ 08/12/2006 7:45 pm • Permalink
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I don't know what compelled me to track down this old post of yours to make another suggestion. Actually, I guess I do know; the merest hint that my previous suggestion didn't fall on deaf ears is what! Anyhow, there's a track which doesn't seem available to purchase yet, which just rocks my socks. That's maybe an oversell. It has that indefinable something, though. Maybe it'll strike you in the same way... The song is "Tears and Laughter" and it's by a chap called Jonathan Czerwik. He has a MySpace page with a poor quality version available to play here.by Daniel Wickes @ 28/02/2007 10:14 pm • Permalink
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Daniel Wickes: Wow, that's a really great track, and again, would fit perfectly with my playlist. Nice find!by bsag @ 02/03/2007 6:24 pm • Permalink
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nice collection there!17
I like your playlist too. This song from Johnny Cash is one of my favorites.by Ciara(myspace comments) @ 23/02/2008 8:08 pm • Permalink
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Some nice tracks there. When I'm listening to tracks [that *I* consider to be] like that, I often include: Stephen Fretwell - Rose Though, from what my friends say, it's very hit or miss!by Daniel Wickes @ 06/12/2006 7:39 pm • Permalink