Genius.

Lately, I have been using the Genius feature of iTunes to make playlists, especially when I'm in the car, and I must report to you, the people, that the experience lives up to the name, or almost. In case you don't know, the way it works is, you pick a song, which starts playing. You hit the middle button, and the menu asks if you want to add it to an On-the-Go playlist, or if you want to turn on Genius. You select the "turn on Genius" option (by all means!), and it creates a playlist of twenty-five songs that connect with the one with which you started.

On the way up to and back from Idaho, the historian and I used Genius to rather stunning effect. The first one we started with was a Thelonious Monk tune, and from that we got Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, Wes Montgomery, and on and on. A very satisfying jazz list. I created a great retro experience by starting with Little Feat, "Willin'," and coming up with all sorts of seventies folk-ish stuff. Deeeelightful.

The best by far occurred when we started with Willie Nelson, "Whiskey River," which gave us (of course) Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch . . . it's like when you get on a good run of shuffled tunes, but more coherent: lots of surprises and so much enjoyment. If you are an obsessive like me and have more tunes than you know what to do with, I think you might enjoy Genius as a different way of accessing your music.

I will say that when I started with a Ben Folds tune, I got a lot more Ben Folds, which leads me to conclude that sometimes, Genius just doesn't have the energy. Like the rest of us.

Lyra.

As two of my sons and I were leaving the theater after a screening of The Golden Compass (which was, on the one hand, not as wonderful as the book, but on the other hand, not nearly as awful as I had been led to believe, but, as any reader of this blog knows, it's not very hard to please me, so take that judgement for what it's worth), my son the singer commented on the Kate Bush song that runs while the credits are rolling--"Lyra." In classic Kate Bush fashion, there are some extra-odd lyrics and beautiful, haunting singing.

"Lyra, Lyra," he yodeled, mockingly.

I said, "I think it sounds kind of beautiful."

"Yeah, but listen to the lyrics," he said, although, what with all the music criticism, I really couldn't, but I'll take his word for it--they were fatuous.

(Okay, I looked it up on The Google: "Lyra… Lyra…And her face full of grace/Two worlds collide around her/The truth lies deep inside her/Lyra… Lyra../And the stars look down upon her/As darkness settles on her/Lyra… Lyra…/Who’s to know what’s in the future/But we hope we will be with her/We have all our love to give her/Oh Lyra… Lyra…"

Are these lyrics terrible? I don't know--maybe not good. Probably not good.)

"But sometimes songs can be good regardless of the lyrics," I ventured--running son agreed.

"Name one song where the lyrics are terrible but the song is good. Where the song is great."

Well, I don't know about that, but the other day while I was out Christmas shopping (motto: one for you, two for me; two for you, three for me), I heard one of the hoariest, probably not-good Christmas songs of all time, by Dan Fogelberg, "Same Auld Lang Syne." I don't know if I will say the lyrics are terrible, but I'm pretty sure they're risible, at least in places, and it features a slightly overblown saxophone solo at the end. Fogelberg doubles his voice throughout, there are loads of strings amping up the sap, there are a million things wrong with this song. On a very good day, Dan Fogelberg is kind of a twee singer (not that there's anything wrong with that--). When my daughter the makeup artist was still in elementary school, she and her then-best friend made up a dance to "Run for the Roses," which involved running toward each other on the diagonal and leaping to emulate the horses running, I guess. That's the basic frame for my response to the Fogelbergian oeuvre. [Note: in looking for a link to the song, I was reminded that he's dead now--feeling a little sorry to be so dismissive. Yet I stand by it. Although, read on:]

But I was so very pleased to hear this song! It hit the melancholy note I find in nearly anything, it hit that note hard; it articulated a certain lonely quality that I always find amplified at Christmas. Something in the chorus--the harmonic progressions, the melody over that, the idea of drinking a toast to something lost?--caught me in the song, as it always has from the first time I heard it. It infected and inflected the rest of my day, and when I got home, I downloaded it from iTunes and listened to it several times in a row.

Why a song catches your ear, or more than that, may be more, or less, than the sum of its parts. It might just be the way the singer slows down at the end of a phrase, or the instrumentation when the song picks the tempo back up, or even a little lyric like

just for a moment I was back at school
and felt that old familiar pain,
and as I turned to make my way back home,
the snow turned into rain.

One's critical faculties may not be the most useful apparatus to engage in judging what amounts to an emotional artifact. Even an emotional artifact that is arguably constructed in whole or in part of ripe cheese.

I can't help it.

I'm listening to iTunes on shuffle, on headphones, while I work, a source of endless amusement to my children, I'm not sure why. Isn't it okay to create a sonic environment? With headphones? Well, isn't it? Just because my headphones make me look like an airline pilot.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the mix--a pleasure I used to avail myself of all the time when I was younger. I liked the surprises in it--hearing Miles Davis next to The Legendary Pink Dots next to Beck next to Suzanne Vega. To name a few.

However, just a moment ago, "Clocks" came on, and I find myself not being able to resist the piano part of that song. I know how lame it is now, apparently, to like Coldplay even a little. But I can't help it. I like that piano part. I like it a lot.

Also, I like Drew Barrymore. I like movie stars. I like bright colors and shiny, sparkly things. I like potato chips and Billy Collins. I like Harry Potter. I like Julia Roberts movies and I like Terms of Endearment, especially because it makes me cry until I feel sick. I liked Titanic. Did I mention I like movie stars? Also I like romantic comedies, almost no matter how lame they are. I like to personalize the basketball players on the Utah Jazz. I can't help it.