Today I have decided to take a day off, a Mental Health Day, if you will.  I will clean my house, finish the laundry so it doesn't hang over my head all weekend, and I will upload tons of my old CDs into my ipod.  Right now most of the music on my ipod is apprised of new, fresh songs downloaded individually from the internet.  Some that I'd only heard once when I purchased them, but now listen to over and over again in my car.

 

Music used to be more tangible than just a download, there used to be more substance.  As a kid, I used to relish sliding my parents' records out of their cardboard sleeves, starting up the record player, and staring at the pictures on the cover as the songs played.  Sometimes the sleeve also contained a lyric book...sometimes there was an inner sleeve with the song lyrics printed in neat columns.  I used to learn these, sing along...the columns of words, deciphering them, reading between the lines, was part of the experience.  A big part.

 

Cassette tapes were more compact, and I remember the Christmas that I received my first Walkman and 2 cassette tapes.  Even before I plugged in the player and popped in the tape, I removed the liner notes and unfolded and stretched them out to see the photos, dedication, the "Thank You"s from the artists.  It was almost more fun to pore over these notes, and I momentarily forgot about the music at all.

 

These days, there is nothing to read, nothing to hold onto, nothing to unfold and pore over, nothing to memorize.  It's all about the music.  All about the songs...but isn't part of the fun of music getting to know and understand and fall in love with the musicians?

 

Through years of music-listening, I have gone through any number of musical "stages" and interests, which my ipod will soon reflect.  From my middle-school days, filled with Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Pat Benetar, to high school, where I moved from The Bangles (remember the movie "Less Than Zero"?  It was my favorite, although watching it a few years ago, I realized that aside from the scene where the Bangles played on multiple television screens at a party, much of it had gone over my head!).  I headed into the Hairband-Metal stage, and dated boys to match.  I wore black t-shirts emblazoned with logos and photos of bands that I had never seen, then finally, ones that I had seen.  An eclectic mix of opera, Nine Inch Nails, and the Indigo Girls followed, and I stopped trying to marginalize my musical taste.

 

In college, I saw every band I could, from the Gin Blossoms to the Spin Doctors to Ministry.  I brought boys to match along with me.  Or I made the boy that I was taking along match the music.  I started associating music with particular guys, rather than the reverse.  I listened to music that the guys I was dating owned, and found some that I really liked.  When we would break up, my friends and I would listen to an angry mix that we had made called "Love Sucks" with songs by Pantera, J. Geils, and this crazy mix of other bands.

 

There was a country music-listening boyfriend, who opened me up to that realm, and I can still appreciate a good twangy song now and then, and when I find myself driving through Upstate New York and can only seem to get good reception of country or religious stations, I can find something to listen to.

 

Since then, it's been a jumble, I will listen to anything, at all, that catches my ear.  I was recently talking to an ex-boyfriend who used to introduce me to new up-and-coming musicians, open my eyes (or ears) to new sounds, and enjoyed inspiring me to go see bands that I had never heard of, but came to love.  He asked me what I was listening to.  I looked at my ipod, diplaying the playlist I had made for my daughter, of her most beloved songs.  I told him, "The Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Jessica Simpson.  That's what's on the current playlist."  I was not surprised at his response, a disgusted sigh, and a mumbled "That's what's wrong with society these days..." but I caught the half-hearted embarrassed apology before it escaped my lips.  "Be open-minded," I laughed instead, "I totally rock out to Hannah Montana after I drop her off at school some days!"  And it's true.  I totally do.

 

So by Monday, my ipod will be resplendant in a variety of songs like you've never heard.  But I have.  They're all part of 34 years of friends, boyfriends, family, husband, kids, and once they're all assembled together, I can once again rock out to everything I can imagine, from Ministry to Hannah Montana!