Music Musing

I have been music-tagged by Mitokondrion !!!!
And since I believe in always doing my byt(e) for the cyber-community (like I haven’t done enough already), here goes….

Disclaimer: I am relatively tone deaf --- I think it happened when I sang “Wouldn’t it be loverly” at the top of my lungs during a high school play --- it bode well for me as an actress that Eliza Doolittle was supposed to sing off-key. So, music veterans, forgive me if the following sounds more like a biography than a list of musical favorites----in my defense, that’s why my weblog is christened thus and there’s more to music than music!

The last CD I bought: Coldplay’s X&Y
Song playing right now: Blvd of Broken Dreams (in my head)

Songs/artists that mean a lot to me, that I absolutely love, in no particular order:

Nothing at all, Ronan Keating: I have been maniacal about this song since long before I started appreciating music. At the time, I only listened to music while driving (that should successfully explain my incompetence in both areas) and I heard Keating’s gem when a pal loaned me one of her CDs. I don’t know if just about anything sounds good after hearing Rush Limbaugh scream on NPR, but post-Limbaugh, I am still in love with this song. I promptly got my then music guru to send me all possible songs by Ronan Keating; seeking the opportunity, he sent me a ton of others I never listened to cos “Nothing at all” was on Repeat for about two months ;).

Blvd of Broken Dreams, Greenday: The reason I even heard this song was cos of Tower music records--- the only shop that stays open till midnight in Philly----and my haven for the short time I was TV-less and daunted by the idea of walking into an apartment that didn’t scream, “there are other people living on earth”. So I walked into the store and randomly began pickin up CDs to listen to (random here meaning the names I’d heard my die-hard music-loving pal Vidy throw out casually during many an intensely musical conversation not involving me --- except for political insights like “Wasn’t Springstein campaigning for Kerry?” that were blatantly ignored). Happily, Greenday’s was one of the CDs I picked---I am now irrevocably in love with the band. And when they played the song to signify Federer at Wimbledon, I knew for a fact that this had to be MY song.

Dancing queen, Abba: Fell in love with it after Abba played the score for Mama Mia (that was the time I didn’t like a song for a song but rather for what I remembered it by). One of the best musicals I have ever been to---I still smile when I re-play it in my head, two years hence. And more importantly, it prompted me into getting my first music CD ever.

Ain’t no mountain high enough: I love Stepmom for a lot of reasons (Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon and the cutest li’l boy on earth) but this song was DEFINITELY one of them.

Big Yellow Taxi, Counting Crews: As far as I am concerned this is the most-played song on FM and I heard it about ten times a day in the lab during grad skool. It successfully drowned out my co-workers’ chatter on bad days and made the bugs behave better on good days! I don’t know if the song just grew on me, but with skool far behind me, I continue to listen to it….

A horse with no name, America: I am not sure where I first heard this but I think it was in Atool’s car (correct me if I am wrong; that way I can figure out the answer to the all important Q: does anyone read my blog before going to the comments section?). I remember thinking it complemented the mountains but it also sounded out of the world within the confines of my best pal’s apartment a couple months later. That was my first real attempt to listen to music actively (the muted TV or google.com always seemed more active by comparison) and I still absolutely adored it.

America, Simon and Garfunkel: I heard it in Borders after a friend recommended it and realized for the first time that corporate giants don’t let you hear the 4-minute tracks on their CDs completely while you can read a 1000 page book to the very end. Talk of double standards. But it works for me—I’d choose a book with coffee while relaxing in a chair any day over struggling with fitting the headphones with one hand and clutching my coffee cup in the other, while resting precariously on my bipeds. Yeah, that was reassurance that music was not my cup of coffee. But if I put up with the incredibly uncomfortable posture anyway, I must like this song a lot.

Indian favorites:
Pooh Pookum aasai, Minsara Kanavu
Sa re ga ma, Boys
Mere khwabon mein, DDLJ
Snehithane, Alaipayuthey
Mein koi aisa geet gaun, Yes Boss
Abhi alvida mat kaho (as an Indian hi-schooler you’ve heard this in a farewell party every year and you still never tire of it---that says something!)


I am TAGGING Sid...He needs to do something worthwhile….