Sunday, January 17, 2010

The shuffle phenomenon ...


People of a certain age will appreciate the ability to "shuffle". People of a certain age will recall listening to the Top 40 on a Sunday evening, with their enormous cassette player and index finger poised, to record their favourite songs and trying to hit the Stop button before the DJ talked all over the end of it.

The beauty of hitting the shuffle button on your ipod is the pleasure of hearing a random song from your past - perhaps something you haven't heard for years. The downside, in our case, is being subjected to some hideous noise that you have never heard before, nor want to hear again.

Now it's fair to say our ipod is a rather bizarre amalgamation of era's, styles and preferences - my husband had the mistaken belief that it would remain his own property and contain his choices. Wrong!

Due to somewhat lazy administration, and since our UK trip in December, the "family" ipod still contains virtually everything we (all) own in one collection - and until someone ruthlessly goes through the menu, it will remain a hotchpotch. But I kinda like this.

So this morning, while I was having a "god, this house is a digraceful pig-sty, you will clear it up" moment, the beleaguered ipod was plugged in and the volume set high so we could all tune in as we cleaned our allotted rooms (well, I call them rooms, you would never have known at the beginning of the cleaning session that we even owned "rooms". Walls and carpets could barely be seen, work tops and tables were covered in layers (and layers) of crap - toys, colouring, socks - well, one sock - paperwork, ear-rings, coins, hairbands, half eaten dog chews - I could go on but don't want to disgust you any more than you already are).

We kicked off this workout session with some Kings of Leon, some Robbie Williams and a bit of Neil Diamond. Throw in some Avril Lavigne and The Sound of Music and you can see where I'm coming from. I now know the whole Taylor Swift repertoire and my current guilty pleasure is Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus. I know - there is little hope for me now. Put your hands up, playing my song ....

But the best song to come out of the vacuuming and polishing today was by the Beautiful South. I am in love with Paul Heaton as a lyricist. One of the most under-rated bands ever I think. The man is a modern-day poet.

And anyone that can write a song called "36D" needs a pat on the back and a large beer. (Or maybe he'd already had the beer - let's make him a coffee).

My favourite lines of his

"... gotta a Phd in I told you so, and a Knighthood in I'm not listening"



This link is the song that came up today but I love all of theirs. Enjoy.


1 comment:

  1. "People of a certain age will recall listening to the Top 40 on a Sunday evening, with their enormous cassette player and index finger poised, to record their favourite songs and trying to hit the Stop button before the DJ talked all over the end of it."

    LMAO!!! I thought that I was the only one who did that. ;-)

    Great vid... nice song. :-)

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