Life as a Soundtrack

There’s a meme floating around Livejournal (maybe you don’t ask what I was doing over there, kay?) that I can’t track down the original source of since the attribution stops at a “friends only” page, but whatever. It’s clever so I’m jacking it.

I’m also adapting it a bit for my purposes, because I’m like that. A tinkerer. Anyway it works like this, you have eighteen “scenes” in your movie. Set up an iTunes playlist that has no unplayed tracks (you could use something other than iTunes but, I mean, why?) and make sure it’s on shuffle. Hit play and for each song that comes up, associate it with that scene. Then hit next and the next random song gets associated with the next scene and so on. The rules are that you only get one skip for the whole list (so use it wisely!) unless you get an artist repeat in which case you can skip again. I suppose if you don’t mind having more than one song from the same band you can ignore that rule, but I like having a big mix. Personal preference. The last rule is that you can swap two scenes at the end if you like, but no more. No cheating. The scenes are identical to the ones in my list below. Ready? Here goes:

Opening Credits: Too Little, Too Late – Barenaked Ladies (meh, not what I would have prefered but could have been worse… this is more of an near-the-end-of-the-movie track)

Waking Up: The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) – Simon and Garfunkel (a decent fit here I think, but would have been much better for Life’s Okay scene)

Average Day: Crosstown Traffic – Jimi Hendrix (I can see this totally working here)

First Date: Help! – The Beatles (this was my switch, I had I Get a Kick Out of You here first and this one below… this way is so much better)

Falling in Love: I Get a Kick Out of You – Frank Sinatra (not bad considering that my switch was only one slot off)

Fight Scene: Secretarial – A.C. Newman (one of my bigger disappointments; I have a lot of heavy stuff in my list and this doesn’t quite work, even on an ironic level)

Breaking Up: Escape – Metallica (heh, I skipped over Jerry Was a Race Car Driver by Primus to get to this one. A good use of the skip I think)

Getting Back Together: My Favorite Mistake – Sheryl Crow (almost couldn’t have picked a better song here)

Life’s Okay: Transparent – In Flames (clearly the worst of the bunch since this song is basically about the opposite of life being okay)

Mental Breakdown: Welcome to This World – Primus (you know, this works)

Driving: Riders on the Storm – The Doors (I swear I didn’t cheat to get this one here)

Flashback: Disillusion – Badly Drawn Boy (sorta okay, more of breakup song really but it doesn’t say what the flashback has to be about so I guess it’s acceptable)

Partying: Unsung – Helmet (could be better, could be worse)

Dance Sequence: Cave – Muse (far from the greatest dance song in my list)

Regretting: The Good Times are Killing Me – Modest Mouse (appropriate)

Long Night Alone: Pretty Babies – Dishwalla (this one sucks not just because it doesn’t really work but also because I hate this song, by far the worst from the Pet Your Friends album; can you think of a worse lyric than “Why the need to eroticize our children”? Gah)

Death Scene: No More Tears – Ozzy Osbourne (I was kinda disappointed by this one at first but the more I think about it, it’s actually pretty good here)

End Credits: Go – Pearl Jam (ill-fitting if you try to sort of loosely visualize the movie; a better opening credits or fight scene song, but I was out of swaps… in fact, had I one more exchange to make I would switch the Opening Credits track with this one)

Overall not too bad. The playlist with unplayed tracks is because you don’t want to put something on there you’ve never heard before as I learned when trying to do this with my iPod. Also I should maybe point out that the playlist my iPod pulls from when updating is focused on having more unplayed or infrequently played stuff on it rather than songs I listen to all the time, so I did a lot of skipping over assorted techno tracks I’ve never heard and rare deep album tracks that I couldn’t place. This might have been better (or at least quite a bit different) if I was doing it from home with my actual iTunes Library. Still, a fun way to waste five minutes.

Try it. It’s fun.

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