Music to My Ears... and This Whole Time, It's Been British!

I listen to my iPod a lot. I can do without it, especially in such a vibrant city as London (and Bloomington, if you walk through the right parts), but nothing else can make a walk, train ride, or bus trip so effortlessly interesting. ("Effortlessly" rules out reading, which unless you're good at walking blindly makes things difficult. And dangerous, depending on the amount of lightposts and potholes. But I digress.) Given the monotony in such travelling, the music I listen to can bring me to a different place, make me even more aware of my present surroundings (like if passing cars follow the beat of a drum), or turn me off to all external stimuli.

Including the music, if you're listened to it enough. This has happened to me. My music library has undergone major expansion in the two years I've been at IU, but I still don't venture very far outside of my musical comfort zone. Sure, I listen to things now that I wouldn't have paid attention to five years ago (like The Roots), but that doesn't keep me from returning to the old standbys over and over again. And since I do a lot of solo moving (to class, to work, to a photo assignment, etc.), I listen to those personal classics, not just over and over again, but over and over and over and OVER again.

I had no idea how many of my favorite songs and artists were British.

Because the traveling situations over here have been different than usual (they drive on the other side of the road, for Christ's sake!), I've paid more attention to what I'm listening to. What I've found is that I was infected with some British music bug a long time ago, and it's always stayed under the radar. I tell people that I'm more of a song person than an artist or album person, so the sheer amount of British-ness in my music hasn't dawned on me until now.

Hell, I heard The Beatles' "Come Together," Supertramp's "Ain't Nobody But Me," and David Bowie's "Suffragette City" while I wrote this entry! I kept looking through my catalog, and I found Elton John, The Clash, Deep Purple, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Eric Clapton, Gilbert & Sullivan (!), Joe Cocker, The Police, and Queen. There are probably a few others that I missed, as well as artists that are on my laptop but not in my iPod.

I described earlier (on more than one occasion) how Beatles music sounds different here. Now that I've found so much more British music in my iPod, about half of my songs will sound different. I need to pay more attention! I wouldn't want to miss any more of these revelations.

P.S.: At this time tomorrow, I'll be at the Gatwick airport, getting ready for a weekend in Dublin. Sweet!