iPod Maintenance Preoccupies Me Constantly

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Nine Songs On The 241

If your iPod's on shuffle and "Revolution 9," from the Beatles' so-called White Album, comes up, you're probably going to be tempted to skip to the next song. That I didn't do so this morning seemed to be a signal to see what I could learn from a southbound from Yorba Linda, Tuesday-before-Thanksgiving random playlist. My theory, you see, is that when your iPod has more than 10,000 songs (I have 10,005), it becomes sentient. Sometimes, like this morning, it picks nine perfect songs right in a row.

Choosing the Beatles' longest, most obscure cut was my iPod's challenge not to be MP-3 ADD -- not to skip over two, four, or ten songs while looking for the perfect one but instead to settle down and hear what the spirit of music was saying. So I gritted my teeth and listened carefully to the John Lennon-Yoko Ono sonic adventure that Paul McCartney and producer George Martin fought tooth and scale to keep off the album. I'm glad they failed. A pastiche of found sounds, from choirs to passionate moaning, "Revolution 9" matches the album's foreboding theme and tone.

As you might imagine, a minute-by-minute summary of the song is on-line, including a transcript of Lennon saying, about a minute in:

They found a shortage of grain in Hartfordshire, and every one of them knew that as time went by, they’d get a little bit older and a little bit slower…factory work…five percent in the, in the uh, the district, they were intended to pay for...

We'll revisit that Hartfordshire factory with Mick and the boys in a moment. The Beatles were actually quoted in my second song, Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion," from his first solo album in 1972: "I know they say 'let it be', but it just don't turn out that way." Named for a dish in a Chinese restaurant and written about a deceased pet, the song, like the White Album, echoes with Vietnam-era urban elite discouragement, as do other songs on the album "Paul Simon" such as "Everything Put Together Falls Apart" and "Paranoia Blues." It was, after all, the year of the reelection of Richard Nixon, for whom no one Pauline Kael and probably Paul Simon knew in Manhattan would vote. A year later, as Watergate raged, Simon released the more elegiac "American Tune," set to music from J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion: "We can't be forever blessed."

A younger, equally skillful lyricist working from a smaller pallet, Belfast-born Christian folksinger Brian Houston wrote my third song, "Practical Reminder," a mid-tempo rocker from his 2005 album,"Thirteen Days In August," about an unnamed local Eleanor Rigby, an Enneagram 2 with a full-on martyr complex:

She's always loneliest when she's with other people
She just saves all of her tears until they leave
For if politeness were a virtue, then I know she's be a saint
She could deny herself for Ireland in the next Olympic games

Living a less circumscribed life was the great, deeply troubled Janis Joplin, whose powerful last album, "Pearl," was recorded with a band called Full Tilt Boogie and released a a few months after her 1970 death from a heroin overdose. FTB were journeymen musicians whom Joplin was proud to have assembled into the rock-solid, cool-rocking band she'd always wanted. She wrote the song that blasted from my Saturn's speakers this morning, "Move Over," which is well lubricated by Ken Pearson on the Hammond B-3 organ and features a powerful guitar solo by Canadian John Till, who some years before had been hired by Ronnie Hawkins after the musicians later known as the Band abandoned him for Bob Dylan.

It always seems to come back to the Band lately. The next song the mischievous iPod dished up could've been a Band song, with its country-style acoustic guitar and, I thought I heard, the hint of a mandolin. But as promised, it's back to Hardfordshire for the Rolling Stones' "Factory Girl" from 1968's "Beggars Banquet." I always thought of this Jagger-Richards song, which even has a country fiddle on it, as an invocation of an American mountain folk tune, but as a matter of fact, all that music came from England, Ireland, and Scotland to begin with. As Keith Richards said in 2003:

To me "Factory Girl" felt something like "Molly Malone", an Irish jig; one of those ancient Celtic things that emerge from time to time, or an Appalachian song.

Ancient indeed, since that was two songs in a row that had me wallowing in memories from high school. Thankfully, Lyle Lovett came along next with something newer, a genuine American country song, "Promises," from his stunning 1996 album "The Road To Ensenada." A sad, hopeless-sounding apology, it's a song St. Paul would have loved:

Promises given
And promises broken
Words stain my lips
Just like blood on my hands

And words are like poison
That sinks down inside you
And some things you do
You just don't understand

This minor-key Lovett original took me from nostalgia to discouragement to curiosity. When did he and Julia Roberts split? The year before the album came out, I see. Evidently Lovett fans have been plumbing it for clues about their breakup for years.

My musical buddy and recent pilgrimage partner Gary Baker tells me that his fellow Van Morrison fans are similarly well informed about the Belfast-born (that's twice in nine songs) living legend's love life. (There are relatively few details at Morrison's otherwise exemplary Wikipedia page.) His "Gypsy In My Soul" turned out to be the next song in my rotation. By this time I was hurtling past Rick Warren's Saddleback Church and listening to Morrison's nasal, supple tenor:

It’s just the gypsy in my soul
Make me pack up my things and go
It may seem like I’m on a roll
But it’s just the gypsy in my soul

Morrison, who used to live near members of the Band in Woodstock, appeared at their Last Waltz concert in 1976. Bob Dylan was in Woodstock as well, and in 1967, in the house called Big Pink, the Band recorded a song he wrote, "Orange Juice Blues," that was released in the 1970s on "The Basement Tapes." The ninth and last song in in my random playlist, it was playing as I rolled into the St. John's Church parking lot. Richard Manuel's beautiful, lost falsetto rang in my ears all day:

I had a hard time waking this morning
I got a lotta things on my mind
Like those friends of yours
They keep bringing me down
Just hangin' round all the time

Artifacts From B. I. (Before iPod)

Remember mix tapes?

The Songs Were Perfect, Don't Change Them

I'm a somewhat anxious and easily distracted person, so when I have my iPod on shuffle, I usually can't listen to two or three songs in a row without thumbing for the next selection, trying to find the perfect drug. Sometimes it takes ten or 20 tries.

But if I'm feeling calm, as during a long Easter Tuesday drive to downtown LA this week, the miraculous little machine makes playlists that end up making perfect sense.

As I pulled out of Yorba Linda, it opened the set with a great morning song, the Who's "The Kids Are Alright," which I first heard on the Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy compilation of the band's still fresh-sounding pre-Tommy hits.

Next up was John Fogerty's "Somebody Help Me," a road song about a guy (probably kind of an old guy) looking all over for his girl (or his fellow AARP member).

From Revival, the song's definitely got a groove. Fogerty's Credence Clearwater Revival was a roots band before the term existed. Among those inspiring CCR was a true original, Bo Diddley, whose "You Don't Love Me (You Don't Care)," released in 1959, has the distinctive Bo beat (famously appropriated by Buddy Holly) plus the purest-sounding harp playing that side of Cream's Jack Bruce's on "Train Time" on Wheels Of Fire a decade later. Bet Bruce learned to play harp listening to Bo's song. No guitar at all on this cut, as far as I could hear.

The Stones' "Under My Thumb" has an equally spare arrangement and one of Mick Jagger's more sneeringly misogynist lyrics. As I drove through the Puente Hills, this cut from 1966's Aftermath evoked the ongoing debate with my friend Andy about whether the pre- or post-Exile Stones are preferable. I'm in the latter camp, but this is a great song, and an ironic one for anyone who's seen "Gimme Shelter." The Stones were playing it at Altamont in 1969 when the Hells Angels started a fight that eventually led to the stabbing death of a concertgoer. As the battle swirls and Jagger sings "Baby it's alright" over and over, a song about dominance becomes a desperate, unavailing plea for calm.

But enough rock and blues, because the mighty iPod then served up Neil Young's "Old Man," one of my high school songs, from 1972's Harvest. It was inspired by the caretaker on the newly rich Young's new ranch in Canada. Funny thing about the insinuating power of music. I don't think I'd heard the studio version of this song in years. While I usually can't remember what I had for breakfast, I remembered exactly when the banjo comes in before the first chorus.

Cracker has no doubt listened to a lot of Neil Young albums -- Bo Diddley ones, too. Their "Take Me Down To The Infirmary" is so rootsy that it sounds like it could've been written in 1935:

I know the whiskey won't soothe my soul
And the morphine won't heal my heart
But if you take me down to the infirmary
I won't have to sleep or drink alone.

Much as I love Patty Larkin, her dark and dense "Normal," from Red=Luck, sort of broke the mood. But bringing the set to a close (because afterward, I started thumbing that playwheel again) was a charming song by Amy Rigby (shown here) called "Don't Ever Change," not the Beatles' version but her own, which has a Resurrection bonus in each verse and chorus:

I saw my baby sitting there at the breakfast table
His hair a mess and he forgot to shave
And I wished that he would get up, make it all better
Stop drinking so much, learn how to behave

Then the radio was playing a Chuck Berry song
And he was looking at me asking what was wrong
I made a list of the things I could say
But he gave me a wink and it all went away, I told him

Hey, I love you, you're perfect, don't ever change

Here she is, performing the song last year with Wreckless Eric.

But You Can't Get Led Zep On The Kindle, Either

It appears that during the first full year of sales, Amazon sold more Kindles than Apple sold iPods in its first year.

A Giant Amazonian Apple

Adam Engst predicts the Kindle will make the iPod get bigger:

Look for Apple to introduce a new version of the iPod touch with a larger screen designed for better video viewing and text reading; Bluetooth keyboard compatibility; and optional 3G data access. Although this could be a bit too much wishful thinking, the market is ready for such an iteration of the iPod touch. Sure, it won’t fit in a pocket, but (a) many people in their 40s and 50s simply can’t see the tiny screens on current devices; (b) there’s a sweet spot between the iPhone and the MacBook Air that’s currently unfilled; (c) Amazon’s Kindle has been sufficiently successful to prove that people want a larger device for reading; and (d) the whole pocket thing is sexist anyway, since women mostly carry purses and don’t have reliable pockets. Oh, and (e), I want one.

And here's another techno-blogger promoting the idea of a larger iPod Touch comprising an Apple move on the Kindle. I love iTunes, too, but do we really want one company dominating music and text markets?

Accountablogability

This might as well be me. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan. A year ago I wasn't blogging, and my life was full. On this most glorious of unallocated days, I tried to figure out where the time is coming from. Neglect of of either vocation? Inconceivable. Of loved ones? Starting to worry about that. Less guitar playing? Unfortunately, although the loved ones reckon it as a blessing. Less reading? More. Fewer movies and reprises of "The West Wing"? Undoubtedly. Less exercise? Oh oh.

Unplugging, I headed out for the traditional three miles around the neighborhood. I sometimes like to listen to music when I walk, plus I took something to read while getting a cup of coffee. Since everyone had gone shopping, I wanted them to be able to reach me. And so I prepared to pocket one device containing the equivalent of 1,000 CDs, another that has the book I'm reading (The Professor and the Madman) plus 20 more and about 45 newspapers and magazines, and a handheld with ten times the computing power of Apollo 11 and the capacity to reach every telephone and web site on earth. This was nuts. I left the BlackBerry home. Ironic, as I think about it.

Kindle Size That

As long as I'm reprising my interests for the sake of my reader (hi, Valerie!), I'll mention my quasitheological faith that the Amazon Kindle will rescue text in general and newspapers in particular. Here's a New Nixon post from March; and here are all my posts on Kindling and the dying newpaper industry. Since I wrote this, the price has come down about $50; there are now roughly 200,000 books available; and the newspaper whose executives I urged to go Kindle have done so (though not, I trust, because of anything I said).

In Border’s last night I picked up a copy of Richard Price’s new novel, Lush Life — but then I put it down again. The discounted price was $25. Amazon’s tempting hardcover price is $15.60, but I’ll keep resisting until I can get it on my Amazon Kindle for $10. Egon in “Ghostbusters” was right: Print is dead. Text isn’t. The Kindle’s going to save it.

Like a true zealot, I want to hold you by the shoulders and make you understand. Every morning before I awaken, the New York Times downloads to my Kindle — every word, sans advertising. It’s 1000% easier to read than on your BlackBerry and 500% easier than nytimes.com on your computer. You can’t balance your computer on your knee and turn pages with one finger while you drink your coffee. You can’t prop your computer on the edge of a book and read it while you’re eating your Cheerios. Your computer doesn’t let you carry around several daily newspapers, the five blogs you’re reading (constantly being updated), and 15 (or 25, or 50) books in a leatherbound package the size of a trade paperback. Your computer doesn’t automatically download beautiful at-rest screens depicting Jane Austen and Alexandre Dumas nor let you change the font size with one button and a click. Addicted to newspapers since I was 16, I’ve picked up the paper Times twice since Christmas (when the Kindle arrived through the blessed agency of my wife). I also feel good about paying for my paper, which I don’t do directly on the BlackBerry or the Internet. Maintaining great newspapers’s correspondents and bureau chiefs in the style to which they have become accustomed is essential to the future of democracy. I’m willing to pay my fair share

The first-generation Kindle costs $400, but that’s got to come down. A friend recently got the comparable Sony reader as a giveaway for flying first class. The Sony doesn’t have the Kindle’s free Internet connection. Still, getting the devices into people’s hands will enable them to begin having the kind of influence on text markets that will give publishers the information they need to plan for the inevitable revolution in how we read. Kindle now offers nearly 110,000 books, virtually all for $10 or less. The offerings are irritatingly spotty — where’s Lush Life? — but they’re getting better every day. Once you’ve bought a Kindle book, you own it forever. The system keeps all your notations, and you can store them on Amazon’s server when you don’t need them on your Kindle. If you’re into the look and heft and smell of books, if it’s reassuring to line then up and gaze at them, let me help you get over that. I used to feel the same way about CD jewelcases. I wanted the cover art, lyrics, and production credits. Then I went to iTunes and paid $10 for music for which Tower Records was charging $16 or $18. Tower Records has taken its jewel cases and gone home.

The miracle of the iPod and Kindle has as much to do with reforming and, one hopes, revitalizing markets for content as with the convenience and fun of the gadgets themselves. When I hear that educated young people are too cool for newspapers, first I feel old. Then I realize that I’m reasonably cool, too, since I probably know more than they do about how China is dealing with political dissidents in the runup to the Olympics just because I saw the Times this weekend. If they read about China on MSNBC or a blog, that source probably got a lot of what it knew from the Times. We need great newspapers because they cover the world with depth and discernment that takes a load of money in a culture that seems to believe that knowledge really is free. So get a Kindle and help reform the text market. Give a Kindle to a kid and make good old-fashioned journalism cool again.