The Soundtrack to My Life

Music is very important to me. It is the soundtrack to my life. I am often listening to music, and even when I'm not, there is often a soundtrack running in my head. (I am also a movie lover, so I am also frequently running movie clips and quotes in there as well. What can I say? My mind is a very busy place!)

A while back, I decided to add more music to my Blip experience to better reflect the role that music plays in my life. I started posting a link each day to a song to accompany each photo. Every day: one picture, one story, one song.

In December of 2011, I finally entered the digital age of music and bought myself a tiny pink iPod Shuffle with some Christmas money. I have a huge collection of CDs purchased over these past many years (which is heavy on music from the 1970s and 1980s), and I happily began digitizing key selections from my collection.

I began carrying the tiny device around with me, listening to my tunes. I tend not to listen to it in the woods, as I want to hear what's going on around me there, but while walking in many other places, I do. When I am on campus each week, I can't say that I am walking around laughing at nothing, but I am indeed often smiling at what I am listening to. And sometimes, I am even dancing!

A few weeks ago, I saw that the iPod Nano was on sale online for about $20 off its usual price, and so I went ahead and bought a brand new purple one with some of this year's Christmas money. While the Shuffle holds about 2 MB (around 450 to 550 songs), the Nano holds 16 MB! Wow! MORE MUSIC!

And so I decided that on my Christmas break, I would spend some time focusing on digitizing more of my music collection. On this particular day, I digitized 35 more of my CDs, which you can see in this picture.

Some John Mellencamp, Stevie Nicks, Leonard Cohen, Dolly Parton, Don McLean, Annie Lennox, Martina McBride, Emmylou Harris, Cream, and a 4-CD Led Zeppelin set also made the cut. The rest of my (considerable) Springsteen collection is next on the list . . . but tomorrow is another day!

I stacked these CDs up to photograph them when I was done, and I sat them by the deck windows for a picture. As I shot it, the light was behind the CDs. And now maybe I see why they call them jewel cases. In the light, the music almost seems to shine! Which is perhaps as it should be . . .

The soundtrack to this picture: Bob Seger, Old Time Rock 'n Roll.

P.S. If you have been a regular reader of my Blip journal, you already have a pretty good idea of what my musical taste is. But turnabout is fair play: if you don't mind sharing, I would love to hear what a few of your top favorite CDs are in the comments!