Current playlist accompanying my thoughts on it all this go round
- I Don't Wanna Know - Fleetwood Mac
- Rainbow Song - The Wagonwheels
- Sit Down I Think I Love You - Buffalo Springfield
- There She Goes - Chris Isaak
- My Friends - David Franklin
- Rusty Old American Dream
- Good Day Everyday - drivin 'n cryin'
- Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands - Elliott Smith
- Over My Head - The Fray
- Collide - Howie Day
- Upside Down - Jack Johnson
- If It Kills Me - Jason Mraz
- Just Gimme Some Truth - John Lennon
- Picture Book - The Kinks
- Suddenly I See - K.T. Tunstall
- Hanging By a Moment - Lifehouse
- Why Can't I? - Liz Phair
- I Wanted to Tell You - Matthew Sweet
- Cast No Shadow - Oasis
Music fills the background. I've often wanted to have a soundtrack to go along with my life, but the impracticalities of doing it are too many. The iPod has certainly made it more of an option, but really, the thought of sitting down and putting all that music in, well, actually, it sounds kind of enticing, but that's not what it's about. The problem is even after only the teenage years your soundtrack would be so voluminous that you'd lose some of those songs that were kind of pivotal, but not really vital, and even those songs deserve to be heard every now and again.
From the list above, I'm trying to see if there's a running theme there, but I can't see one. I'm sure I could if I thought about it long enough, but who has time for that when there's Crackbook status' to update, crackheads to email, new threads to post (that's right, you're being excluded sometimes), and profile photos to change. I guess the most obvious thing that hops out at me is, well, no, I was going to say music from the 90s, but Fleetwood Mac, Buffalo Springfield, John Lennon, and the Kinks throw that out the window. Dammit, I'm going to have to rethink this playlist thing.
If you were given the choice from the Powers That Be to compile a soundtrack for your life would you be able to do it? Could you narrow down the music that matters most to you from birth to present? You can have a double CD, that's a lot of songs you can fit on there, unless your tastes tend to run toward the Allman Bros., the Dead or John Coltrane. Would you be able to whittle and cut and scratch out and omit and resubmit these little pieces of notes and words and meaning and emotion and EVERYTHING to create a picture of you so that when you're gone some kid will pick up your soundtrack see your picture on the cover, flip it over to look at the songs and have a pretty good idea of who you were? It's a BIG task, especially since most of us are not even halfway through our lives yet.
Could you compile a soundtrack for a loved one? One that could really capture them? Whether it's someone you're going to spend the rest of your life with, or just someone you're currently obsessing over, do you think you could put together 14 songs that sum that person up? I challenge you to do it. Now we're not just talking a mix-tape here. This is a bit deeper than that, admittedly, not much deeper, but a bit. You've got to pick out songs that will be able to show complete strangers who your loved one was. I suppose there could be different volumes, two siblings might put together two very different soundtracks for a parent depending on the relationship. A spouse might put something together that s/he thinks creates the perfect image in sound and voice and a secret crush might create a completely different image. Is one better than the other? I don't know, and I don't think it matters (not that any of this does), but there's a challenge in this and that's to take yourself out of it and put that loved one as the focus. There might be songs that you don't particularly care for, but they somehow fit with your loved one, you've got to put aside your tastes and focus on the image you're trying to create.
So, you've got your challenge. Are you up for it? Do you even care about it? If you do send me the playlist and let me see if I can get the image of your loved on in my head. I won't tell if it doesn't look anything like them, but I bet a lot of you could do a really great job.
So, keep going back to edge, but don't forget seeing how it all plays out is worth sticking around for.
