D is for Demands

There are 62 songs in my Itunes library beginning with the letter "D." The proximity to the number 64 tempts me to make another bracket, and truth be told I think the "D" songs would kick some serious butt against the "B" songs.

One thing that's odd, though, is that while I have the same number of songs beginning with the letter "D" as the letter "B" there are fewer different words that begin with the letter "D."

There are several songs beginning with some form of the word "dance" including "Dance Me to the End of Love," "Dancing Boy," "Dancing in the Dark," "Dancing Queen," and "Dancing with Myself." [Try to avoid dancing with yourself in the dark until the end of love, though.]

There's a "Desert Pete" and a "Desert Rose."
I've been "Down So Long" that I hardly know if I'm "Down There by the Train," "Down on the Border" or "Down the Road Tonight." I do know that if I go "Down to the Waterline" I may just see the "Downeaster Alexa." I may just be in "Downtown" Akron.

Supertramp is a bunch of "Dreamers." The Nylons "Dream" but Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" but only Sting dreams the "Dream of the Blue Turtles."

The Police are "Driven to Tears" but Johnny Cash will just "Drive On."

By far, the most common form of Itunes advice, however, comes in the form of the negative imperative. A stunning 20 songs begin with the word "Don't." If I take out the two in the interrogative form ("Don't You Want Me?" by the Human League and "Don't You Think It's Time?" by J. Mascis from the Grace of My Heart soundtrack) I'm down to 18. An additional three songs are descriptive--"Don't Need a Gun" by Billy Idol, "Don't Know Much About History" by Sam Cooke, and "Don't Miss You at All" by Norah Jones. So I'm left with a still healthy fifteen prohibitions from my Ipod. Rather than rank them from best to worst, I will rank them from easiest to hardest in terms of taking the musical advice.

Easy:
"Don't Burn the Bridge" (Don McLean)
"Don't Stand So Close to Me" (The Police)
"Don't Stand So Close to Me 86" (The Police)
"Don't You (Forget About Me)" (Billy Idol)

Moderately Difficult, But I think I Can Comply:
"Don't Stop" (Fleetwood Mac)
"Don't Get Me Wrong" (The Pretenders)
"Don't Slow Down" (Mister Mister)

Darn Difficult
"Don't Stop" (Rolling Stones)--Yeah, I know, it's the same title, but somehow I think the Stones are talking about something else than Fleetwood Mac.
"Don't Ask Me Why" (Billy Joel)
"Don't Fear the Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult); I shouldn't but I do.
"Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" (Elton John); like that's in my control.
"Don't Pay the Ferryman" (Chris DeBurgh); have you ever tried to stiff the ferryman?
"Don't Give Up" (Peter Gabriel)
"Don't Stop Believin'" (Journey); holding onto that feeling can be hard sometimes.
"Don't Worry About the Government" (The Talking Heads); hard not to when it has us on the road to nowhere. Maybe they heard Leonard Cohen tell them that "Democracy" is coming to the USA.

Demanding bunch these rockers. I must fight to the end, never give up, never slow down, never forget Billy Idol, never misunderstand Chrissie Hynde, and never stand too close to Stewart Copeland. If you can do all that "Day After Day" perhaps at the end of the day you can "Dim All the Lights" take your "Dirty Knife" go see if "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" or just "Drift Away" before all the effort makes you "Driven to Tears."

I would like to respectfully and non-ironically dedicate this blog entry to "Daniel" my brother, who is older than me but who is not, to my knowledge, traveling tonight on a plane.