from Dragonfly to Dreams

Day 215, Session 75:
When/Where: Tuesday January 23rd - On the train and in the office.
First song: Dragonfly by The Thorns
Last full song: Dreams by Fleetwood Mac
Progress: 1024-1031 of 4814
Total Songs Heard: 877

With three versions of Jeff Buckley's Dream Brother and two versions Dreams (both the original and a Corrs cover) out of the 8 songs it wasn't the most varied listening session I've ever had. Let's take a look at the shortest "song" of the day, which was actually a clip from Dream Police by Cheap Trick. It was only a clip from the song because it was being used as part of a high school dance routine. I can't really go into all the details as to why I had a song from a high school dance routine in my music library but at one point this year I went to go see this high school dance team perform.

It was... uncomfortable. I had a perfectly good reason to be there watching this team but I still couldn't shake the dirty old man feeling I had while watching. I mean, I knew why I was there, and the girls on the team knew why I was there, but I couldn't shake the feeling that other people in the crowd were wondering what the hell I was doing there. I thought about pretending I had a kid there, but, while I am obviously much older than a high school student, I don't look old enough to be mistaken for a high school parent. In fact, compounding the problem, I tend to look younger than I actually am... which in this case meant I still looked too old for high school, but not old enough to completely dismiss the thought that I might be the type of creepy guy who hangs around high schools watching the dance team perform.

The whole time I attempted to awkwardly straddle the line between watching carefully (since that's what I was there to see) and making it look like I wasn't watching at all. It made my brain hurt.

In the end, of course, I'm sure no one thought twice about my presence. The parents were too busy video taping their kids or yelling at the refs to notice me. And even if the high school kids couldn't tell that I was much older (which they could,) they would instinctively know that I wasn't cool enough to talk to.

So, is there a proper way to watch a high school dance team as a 30-year old guy? Probably not... and I should probably delete the track to stop reminding myself.

Friday October 13th - Morning

Day 113, Session 38:
Location: On the train to work, except for the first song, which I apparently played as soon as I got out of bed.
First song: Broken by Jack Johnson
Last full song: Brother Love's Traveling Salvavation Show by Neil Diamond
Progress: 504-510 of 4422
Total Songs Heard: 439

Quick thoughts on some of the 7 songs from this morning:

Broken by Jack Johnson is from the "Curious George" movie that came out last winter. The wife and I went to see it in the theatre. We were the only people in the place who weren't accompanied by at least one person under the age of ten. We were, however, accompanied by approximately 10 stuffed animal monkeys that we decided would want to see the movie. Bringing them along started as something as a joke suggestion from the wife, then devolved into a challenge about how many animals we could sneak into the theater. Luckily, it was winter, and my winter coat has a lot of pockets, so the answer ended up being all of them. At one point during the movie, the little boy sitting directly in front of us turned around to take in his surroundings. He seemed quite surprised.

Brother by Toad the Wet Sprocket features one of my favorite song intros ever. It's a fun guitar and organ (which is probably not a real organ, but hey it sounds enough like an organ for me.) If I actually had a brother, this would be a good place to mention him and talk about our relationship. Maybe I could tell a funny story about that thing we did that time. But, uh... I don't have a brother, so I guess we're done here.

Broken Heart by Axel Rudi Pell (which must be a made up name) sucked out loud. I really shouldn't have acquired "Metal Ballads (Vol. 3)". Deleted!