{"id":8225,"date":"2012-09-21T21:36:34","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T20:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8225"},"modified":"2012-09-22T07:58:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-22T06:58:55","slug":"making-a-list-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8225","title":{"rendered":"Making a list (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love lists.<\/p>\n

Lists make the world go round.<\/p>\n

Sortov.<\/p>\n

I have shopping lists (but one at a time, obv).<\/p>\n

I have ‘to do’ lists.<\/p>\n

I have work-based project plans (essentially just one big complex list).<\/p>\n

I have birthday lists (which I prefer to call ‘a calendar’).<\/p>\n

I have my contact list (which I used to call an address book).<\/p>\n

I have a list of people who I never want to hear of again (it’s a very short list).<\/p>\n

And I have, in iTunes, my playlists.<\/p>\n

Plural.<\/p>\n

I have my ‘Driving’ playlist.<\/p>\n

I have my ‘Reviews’ playlist.<\/p>\n

I have my ‘Exercising Vin’ playlist.<\/p>\n

And, right now, I’m building a ‘Mellow’ playlist.<\/p>\n

My iPod, you see, wakes me up in the mornings; every weekday my bedroom docking station switches my iPod on and, at a soothing volume, music begins to filter in to my consciousness.<\/p>\n

It’s a lovely, peaceful way to wake up, even at 4.45am.<\/p>\n

Of course, my second alarm – at 5.05am – makes ‘If you don’t get out of bed right now I’m going to scream the house down!’ noises.<\/p>\n

But the peaceful waking up from my iPod usually does the job; I’m usually pottering around the kitchen by 5.05am, having switched the noisy alarm off.<\/p>\n

I digress.<\/p>\n

What I want to have is the option to fall asleep to my iPod’s\u00a0accompaniment.<\/p>\n

This is more troublesome than waking up.<\/p>\n

Not because of any technological issue – it is a very easy thing to make happen.<\/p>\n

No, the problem is the musical content of my iPod.<\/p>\n

I tried falling asleep to it yesterday.<\/p>\n

I was just starting to doze when some lovely work by Sigur R\u00f3s\u00a0segued in to ‘Fuck Up The Fun’ by\u00a0Azealia Banks…<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Yeah, I so didn’t feel like sleeping after that (a great track in the right time\/right place though!).<\/p>\n

And the thing is, on a similar thought, no matter how much I love the work of Baby Godzilla (and I do love their work dearly), their work ‘We Dine On Wine And Parking Fines’ is just not bedtime music.<\/p>\n

I decided I needed a ‘falling asleep’ playlist.<\/p>\n

The criteria is simple: laid-back music that is going to be good to listen to, but not so engaging that it keeps me awake.<\/p>\n

And I also need to keep the playlist short; the temptation to stay awake to see what comes next would be self-defeating!<\/p>\n

Saccharine\u00a0is to be avoided at all costs, so guilty pleasures like The Bangles ‘Eternal Flame’ are out. I’d lie in bed harmonising to that one!<\/p>\n

Similarly, The Beautiful South’s ‘Song For Whoever’ is banned (though I’m not altogether sure why it is).<\/p>\n

Also out are songs with a high social commentary value so, as gorgeous as it is, Big Country’s ‘Chance’ could never make the new playlist.<\/p>\n

And no Billy Bragg. Or Dre, Eminem or Busta Rhymes.<\/p>\n

But maybe some Bill Withers. And a little Aretha?<\/p>\n

However, I do need to keep the list short.<\/p>\n

Shortish.<\/p>\n

How about just a little Buddy Guy? Maybe just ‘Feels Like Rain’?<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Omagerd, am I still only on the letter ‘B’?<\/p>\n

Bonnie Rait has to be on the list – but which one?<\/p>\n

Eventually, despite the slightly cheesy first four notes (and despite the fact the song brings me to the edge of tears every single time), I decide there can only be one Bonnie Rait song…<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

But hang on, did I deliberately skip over Arcade Fire?<\/p>\n

*briefly ponders the Arcade Fire dilemma – realises that yes, I did deliberately skip over them*<\/p>\n

But if I slipped in something by\u00a0Cari Clara, the Arcade Fire dilemma is resolved, hooray!<\/p>\n

Tough choices and I’m still only on ‘Ca’.<\/p>\n

I have a peculiar yet overwhelming desire to include ‘Call Me Maybe’ by Carly Rae Jepson even though it is an unsuitable falling asleep record! I manage to resist the temptation, but it’s a close thing.<\/p>\n

And what about foreign language music; how much of a mental stimuli would it be, to hear something Spanish and to lie in my bed translating the lyrics in to English?<\/p>\n

Yeah, too much stimulation, probably.<\/p>\n

So no foreign language then.<\/p>\n

*deletes the entire back-catalogue of Ainhoa Cantalapiedra* from the new playlist.<\/p>\n

What about Deer Chicago’s ‘Frozen Globe, Freezing Teeth’ – such an\u00a0under-appreciated\u00a0work of musical genius.<\/p>\n

Yeah, but hang on, I’m not building a work of musical genius, this is supposed to be a ‘quiet, mellow’ playlist.<\/p>\n

*includes ‘Frozen Globe, Freezing Teeth’ by Deer Chicago anyway*<\/p>\n

I’m now on De.<\/p>\n

‘Private Investigation’ by Dire Straits?<\/p>\n

I listen to the track twice before deciding against it.<\/p>\n

Don Henley, ‘New York Minute’, yes?<\/p>\n

Yes!<\/p>\n

I would love to put in the 7 minutes and 4 seconds of goodness that is ‘The Garden Of Allah’ but I’d never relax to that, I’d be too busy reciting the Devil’s lines.<\/p>\n

‘Broken Bird’ by Echo Boomer is far too beautiful to miss; absolutely no thinking about this track at all; click – drag – drop, done.<\/p>\n

Similarly binary is ‘Underachiever’ by Ex Libras; click – drag – drop, done.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Pretty quickly I find myself down at Fleetwood Mac, and there is only one track of theirs that is an automatic consideration, the totally brilliant ‘Man Of The World’.\u00a0But wait, I listen to it and I get to the messy ending.<\/p>\n

I agonise over ‘Man Of The World’ for so long that I find I’ve listened to it three times.<\/p>\n

But no, it’s not in; that messy ending is too messy for a chilled-out playlist.<\/p>\n

And now I can barely keep my eyes open.<\/p>\n

So with the cursor hovering above ‘The French Open’ by Foals, I end the list-compiling, for now.<\/p>\n

There are 17 tracks on the list already, I’m only on Fo.<\/p>\n

Bugger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love lists. Lists make the world go round. Sortov. I have shopping lists (but one at a time, obv). I have ‘to do’ lists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}