February 5, 2013

I Sing The iTunes Electric

A few years ago, I lost my mobile phone. I can't remember where (no doubt if I did, I would have found it). To make matters worse, my laptop had recently died, and I hadn't backed up my iPhone on my new computer. My entire iTunes collection was wiped out.

Over the years, I built up a new collection, slowly. As I remembered the songs I'd downloaded from the net, I would add them to my playlist, but I knew that most of them were lost forever. And it hurt. Those songs were a part of me. They evoked a myriad of feelings, a thousand memories from my life. There were songs that made me cry every single time I heard them. There were songs that made me get up and dance. Songs that made me energised. And the sexiest song I'd ever heard.

Sadly, I couldn't remember what that one was.

And then last week, something miraculous occurred. I used my brain. I realised that there simply had to be a system for identifying and re-retrieving songs one had downloaded from iTunes. And, lo and behold, there was. It was time consuming and cumbersome, but it could be done.

So I did it.

My entire, previously wiped playlist magically appeared before me, and I retrieved the songs, one by one. It was incredibly exciting - like uncovering lost-lost photos, or love letters, or childhood diaries. I rushed through the download and began playing my tunes. I was in heaven.

There was I Sing The Body Electric, from the movie Fame - a song that gives me goosebumps every single time.



There was Shout and Deliver by The Reels, which takes me back to 1981, a daggy Year 8 girl with frizzy hair and too-thick eyebrows. US Forces by Midnight Oil, which reminds me of an old school friend. Pass The Duchie, which is as close as I ever came to drugs in my youth. Pressure, by Billy Joel, which never fails to get me up and moving.

There was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, which makes me pensive. Michael Nyman's piano score for The Piano, which makes me weep. And Teardrop, by Massive Attack, a song my sister famously pointed out and cried "Look, how cute! She has a cool song in her collection by mistake!"

Oh, and the sexiest song in the entire world? Well, I'll leave that up to you. But let me tell you, I'm playing it right now....

2 comments:

  1. I used to do the hairbrush thing with "I Sing the Body Electric" when I was a youngster... and am pretty sure I leapt about when the music got faster. (From memory... it's been a while!)

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  2. I love my iTunes collection!
    And if you haven't sung out loud to every song on your play list while being pointed at and mocked, you haven't lived!

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