Saturday, December 13, 2008

"F" is for Frequency

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

That seemed to be the question worth asking as I perused the 56 songs beginning with the letter "F" in my Itunes library.

The playcount feature on the right column is an odd thing--I don't remember listening to these songs proportionately more than any others (I tend to only really listen to stuff on shuffle play), but here's what the counter says are the five most frequent songs that came up when the shuffling stop:

1) "Fast Car" -- Tracy Chapman. Weird story about this song. I always assumed it was a guy. I had heard it on the radio but never knew who sang it. I had heard of Tracy Chapman but never listened to any of her music. Then I downloaded "Change" after hearing it on a commercial for HBO DVDs and searched for other songs by the same artist.

2) "Find Us Faithful" -- Steve Green. Honestly, I don't remember listening to this song ten times in the last decade, but the counter says...Must have come up when I pulled the earbuds to pay my bills. Fairly well made if conventional CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) that I've always liked since a guy sang it at my church when I was in college. (Though I confess I liked the cover better he did better.)

3) "For Your Eyes Only" -- Sheena Easton. Personally, I think this is far and away the best Bond theme song. (No offense to Carly Simon.)

4) "Further to Fly" -- Paul Simon. You know, I remember playing Graceland during a Spades game in Marye House and Cindy (who was just a friend at the time) asking me who it was. That was the first (and last, really) time anyone who was at all cool artistically ever complimented me on my taste in music. I thought Rhythm of the Saints was a great follow up, but I haven't heard much from Simon after that, have I?

5) "First We Take Manhattan" -- Leonard Cohen. I actually have no idea what this song means. But I kind of like the lyrics: "They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom /For trying to change the system from within."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"3) "For Your Eyes Only" -- Sheena Easton. Personally, I think this is far and away the best Bond theme song. (No offense to Carly Simon.)"

Personally, I think you are far and away wrong.

I still haven't seen the movie, but take a listen:
Quantum of Solace them by Jack White and Alicia Keyes

Kenneth R. Morefield said...

You are allowed to disagree. Perhaps years from now I might see your point...but I still cannot get all the way through the title "Quantum of Solace" without breaking out into guffaws.

Peter T Chattaway said...

Interesting that your top two James Bond themes (Carly Simon seems to be the runner-up, here) would be from two of the very few James Bond movies that did not have music by John Barry. (Barry pretty much defined the James Bond "sound", having co-written the music -- including the songs -- for all the Bond films between 1962's Dr. No and 1987's The Living Daylights, with the exceptions of George Martin's score for 1973's Live and Let Die, Marvin Hamlisch's score for 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me and Bill Conti's score for 1981's For Your Eyes Only.)

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm. For Your Eyes only vs. Live and Let Die by Wings. Sheena Easton or Paul McCartney. Well, I guess we'll agree to disagree...