Opening Pandora's Box

Mac, this post might make you cry.

This is in response to my brother's post, "Missing My Damn Pater Familias" about the online radio-ish station Pandora, which uses some sort of magic voodoo to accomplish its purposes. You can type in any artist and they will make a radio station that plays music similar to that artist. My brother wrote in his blog that he found himself wanting to email our Dad and tell him about it, and then realized that he couldn't. He thinks that Dad's favorite radio station would have been the Jimi Hendrix station.

When my Dad died, I got his iPod, and, after listening to the songs on it for a few weeks, I finally had to just move on and put my own songs on it. But I couldn't do it without cataloging every single song on his iPod, including his 25 most played. These were the top ten:

1. "Ruby Tuesday" Rolling Stones
2. "Me and Bobby McGee" Janis Joplin
3. "We've Only Just Begun" The Carpenters
4. "Don't You Want Somebody to Love" Jefferson Airplane
5. "One Way or the Other" Blondie
6. "Hurt So Bad" The Letterman
7. "Purple Haze" Jimi Hendrix
8. "Bad Moon Rising" Credence Clearwater Revival
9. "Southern Cross" Stephen Stills
10. "These Eyes" The Guess Who

Before I go any further, I need to explain to those of you who are just joining us that my Dad died last October 30th. He had a very rare brain disease whose first major symptom is psychosis. So my Dad quite suddenly went crazy, but we didn't know he was going crazy. My Dad presumably stopped listening to this iPod in early August right before he became bat shit crazy. I draw your attention to this fact because it makes absolutely no sense that my Dad would like Blondie. And I do not understand why Janis Joplin is #2 on his list. I never heard him listen to her.

Below is a list of every single track on the iPod in alphabetical order. The numbers before the tracks are the rankings in his top 25 most played. Jimi Hendrix didn't rank as high as we would have expected. I read this like a diary or a poem, especially the end, and it hurts:

Abba-Dancing Queen
Abba—Take A Chance On Me
Addicted to Love
Al Green—Lean on Me
Al Green and Annie Lennox—Scrooge Soundtrack—Put a Little Love In Your Heart
17.All Along the Watchtower
Allison Kraus—When You Say Nothing At All
Allman Brothers—Ramblin’ Man
B52—Roam
16. Back in the USSR
8. Bad Moon Rising
Beach Boys—Fun, Fun, Fun
Beach Boys—Good Vibrations
Beatles—Hey Jude
14. Beatles—Let it Be
Beatles—Michelle
Beatles—Revolution
Bette Midler—Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
5. Blondie—One Way or Another
Box Tops—Cry Like a Baby
California Girls
Carly Simon—You’re So Vain
Christopher Cross—Sailing
4. Don’t You Want Somebody to Love—Jefferson Airplane
24. Drifters—There Goes my Baby
Elton John—Crocodile Rock
Elton John-Daniel
Elton John—Pinball Wizard
Fifth Dimension—Let the Sunshine In
18. Free Bird
20.I’ve Been Waiting for a Girl Like You—Foreigner—Foreigner 4
12. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
21.In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Jimi Hendrix—Are You Experienced
Jimi Hendrix—Foxey Lady
7. Jimi-Hendrix—Purple Haze
19.Kinks—All Day and All Of The Night
Kokomo
22. Leaving on a Jet Plane
Led Zeppelin---Stairway to Heaven (Rare Acoustic)
Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd—Whole Lotta Love
6. The Lettermen –Hurt So Bad
13.Magic Carpet Ride
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terell—It Takes Two
11. Maybe I’m Amazed—Paul McCartney—Wings Over America
2. Me and Bobby McGee—Janis Joplin
23.Pink Houses—John Cougar—Scarecrow
15. Platters—Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Political Grapevine: 7/25/07—Brit Hume’s Grapevine
Political Grapevine: 7/27/07—Brit Hume’s Grapevine
Political Grapevine: 8/1/07—Brit Hume’s Grapevine
The Radio Factor—7/25/07—The Radio Factor
The Radio Factor—7/27/07—The Radio Factor
The Radio Factor—8/2/07—The Radio Factor
The Radio Factor—8/3/07—The Radio Factor
Rocket Man
Roy Orbison—Crying
Roy Orbison—Only the Lonely
Roy Orbison—Pretty Woman
1. Ruby Tuesday—The Rolling Stone—Flowers
Sloop John B
9. Southern Cross
10. These eyes
3. We’ve Only Just Begun
25. Yesterday
409
5 Minute Newscast (1 PM EST 7/26/07)—FOX News Radio
5 Minute Newscast (2 PM EST 7/29/07)—FOX News Radio
5 Minute Newscast (4 PM EST 8/2/07)—FOX News Radio
5 Minute Newscast (5 PM EST 8/3/07)—FOX News Radio
5 Minute Newscast (7 PM EST 7/29/07)—FOX News Radio
5 Minute Newscast (9 PM EST 7/27/07)—FOX News Radio