What's on your IPOD?

People's musical tastes can reveal a lot about them.  Perhaps that's one of the reason's we aren't always completely forthcoming about what we really like to listen to.  For example, I'd rather die than have anyone know that I have Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton singing "Islands in the Stream" on my playlist...  oops.

But, it gets worse.  Fortunately, I have no street cred.  In fact, it's a well-known fact that my musical tastes might make Lawrence Welk look like a swinger.  It's true... I like Ray Conniff.  It's not just those jazzy covers and internationally loved Christmas songs...  I like a lot of his versions of movie theme songs and 50's and 60's hits.  "Easy Listening" might be my favorite musical section at any CD store. 

You'll also find an eclectic mix of Doris Day and Frank Sinatra, Queen and Depeche Mode, Morrissey and Ella Fitzgerald, Mozart and Handel, Judy Garland and Shirley Bassey, They Might Be Giants and Burl Ives...  my friends, it's all there..  and so much more.  There are also several old Lux Radio Theatre presentations of popular films of the 30's and 40's, dozens of  "Dragnet", "My Favorite Husband", "The Whistler" and "Suspense" radio episodes, about ten versions of "Ave Maria" and a few versions of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", currently a favorite song.  And then, the podcasts produced by The Royal Collection - keepers and experts on all the trappings that surround the British Royal Family.

When I like a piece of music, I tend to get it in multiples.  "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" is one example, but there's also, "In the Bleak Midwinter".  A song so hauntingly beautiful that it goes straight through you.  I first heard it at a high school choir concert of all places!  I found a few versions on Itunes, and bought them all.  The same is true of my favorite hymns of all time, "The Holy City" (if you've never heard Mahalia Jackson sing, or this hymn, the two together are incomparable) and "Softly and Tenderly".

Can you imagine a time when you'd hear a piece of music once, maybe twice, and it would have to be
performed live?  Think of the people who lived in the time of Mozart.  Now, we can take his complete works with us everywhere we go.  Now, if I like something, I might listen to it over and over and over and...  you get the point.  We are lucky, aren't we?

Finally, just to let you know how roundly condemned my taste in audio entertainment is, I share this little story with you...

A few years ago, our car was broken into while it was parked in our carport.  Among the things that were taken were several CD's.  One of my favorites was "The Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II".  Calling around to local record stores who are known to buy used CD's, the "coolest" one in town had this to say, truly aghast...  "Dude...  You mean you actually listen to that @#$*?"  Yes, "dude", I really do.

So, whether you are bold enough to share all of your musical tastes with others, or you like to keep a few hidden gems as your own guilty pleasures, enjoy the fabulous technology that allows us to carry it with us wherever we go.  What's on your IPOD?  A little Ray Conniff, perhaps...