album of the day: all the songs on my iPod Part 1 of ???

(Caveat emptor: There is no Money Mark on my iPod.)

I struck on this idea Friday: playing everything on my iPod, in alphabetical order by song title. I actually started then, but the album of the day was already Biff Nerfurpleberger's Greatest Hits. Today's list, with a few annotations:

"Ain't You A Mess" (Mose Allison).

"Airbag" (Radiohead). Brought to mind the concert we went to a few years ago, opened by Christopher O'Riley, whose claim to fame is that he has transcribed a bunch of Radiohead songs for solo piano. He was followed by the Bad Plus, who rocked.

"All Along The Watchtower" (Jimi Hendrix' version of Bob Dylan's song). This followed perfectly from Airbag, surprisingly enough.

"All Apologies" (Nirvana). The MTV Unplugged version, which I like better than the studio version.

"All My Friends" (Land Of Talk). I'm pleased as heck this came up, because I've wanted an excuse to enthuse about Land Of Talk in this space. I listened to them obsessively desperately this past Spring and early summer, and am still acutely susceptible to lead singer Elizabeth Powell's punky, raspy vocals, especially when she's singing about naughty stuff. If more men of a certain age listened to Land Of Talk, I believe Pfizer would be a less profitable operation.

"All The Quirky Singer-Songwriters You Can Eat" (Paper Cats). This remains one of our best written and best produced songs. It has a fun lyric, a nice jazzy tune, I like my lead guitar work for once, and of course, Lauren sings sweetly and innocently about cannibalizing people like Regina Spektor and Rufus Wainwright.

"All You Need Is Love" (Beatles). Believe it or not, that seemed to flow pretty well. Often, as for instance today, when I hear this song, I get the video in my head from the international TV broadcast when the Beatles debuted this song: the room full of celebs, the hippie outfits, etc., but mainly, John chewing gum while singing. That has always bugged me. I've seen the footage dozens of times, and I always expect him to swallow his gum.

"Another Man's Done Gone" (Wilco/Woody Guthrie). From the Mermaid Avenue album.

"Anywhere I Lay My Head" (Tom Waits). We learn that anywhere Tom Waits lays his head he considers home.

"Arena Rok" (Grogwhow). Of course, I just wrote about Grogshow.

"Ashes To Ashes" (David Bowie). Not a good fit sandwiched between the two Grogshow numbers. Poor Major Tom.

"asiwwog" (Grogshow).

"Ask" (The Smiths). I couldn't for the life of me think of a Smiths song starting with A when this came on. (Morrissey is right, you know. But that's probably meaningless.)

"Astral Weeks" (Van Morrison).

"At My Window Sad And Lonely" (Wilco/Woody Guthrie). Okay, this was starting to get weird. I don't think we can safely conclude anything about anything - not the inner workings of the universe, not my musical tastes, not anything about music in general, by the coincidental repetition of Wilco doing Woody Guthrie songs and Grogshow songs in this set. Especially not considering this was followed by...

"At Seventeen" (Janis Ian). Quit yer whinin'!