5600+

At about 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, I reached a milestone. You may recall that last fall I started listening to all of the songs on my iPod in alphabetical order by song title. I finished on Thursday morning. What had started with Ella Fitzgerald's "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" ended with Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" (preceded by Alison Kraus' lovely version of the same song from a tribute album). So 5600 plus songs later, I've managed to go through my entire catalog of songs.

I managed to discover that I had two copies of several songs, so that means I could clear out my playlist a little bit. I also found out that some songs had not downloaded properly and would not play the way they are supposed to play. Those also get deleted. It isn't that I need space or anything. I bought an iPod that has a capacity of 160GB. I have a long way to go before I fill that up.

As I've stated in previous posts, sometimes you realize just how many different versions you have of a particular song when you listen to them this way. I have, for example, four singers doing their take on "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me": Dusty Springfield (of course), Elvis Presley, John Barrowman (courtesy of his biggest fan, my friend N), and Shelby Lynne (courtesy of my friend C). Listening to Dusty and Shelby sing the song almost back-to-back just heightens the intensity of Lynne's tribute album to Springfield's greatest songs. And there are four versions of "You Go to My Head" as well: Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Keely Smith, and Rufus Wainwright. Does it get any better than this?

I think after I've deleted the duplicate songs and found some more "stable" versions of the songs that are currently unplayable (like "Young Hearts Run Free" by Candi Staton, which I love but which I have yet to be able to download successfully), I might start the process all over again. Of course, I have a few "new" songs I want to add first, but this has been a pleasurable journey, one I'm anxious to take again.