Pardon this detour into escapism. Work has been in overdrive this week, and there is nothing I can say that can do justice to the continuing suffering on the Gulf Coast [wordless motion of head to link at top of right sidebar]. This meme from Robert at The LLama Butchers is just what I need right now: Go to Music Outfitters and find their list of the 100 top songs for the year you graduated from high school. Bold the ones you liked, strike the ones you hated, and leave alone the ones to which you were indifferent or that you can't remember. Since I seem to be under an attack of blessed rage for useless order right now, I've tweaked the categories a bit, as follows:
Bold: Would listen to an oldies station that had this song on the playlist
Italicized bold: Would start singing along and dancing in the car when the oldies station played this song
Unchanged: "Meh," but wouldn't change the station
Small font: Don't remember this song
Strikeout: Would change the station if this came on the oldies station
Brown strikeout: Would change the station, then puncture my eardrums with a chopstick, if this came on the oldies station
These songs are from the year 1976, the year that my high school graduation present was a store-brand turntable/radio/8-track/cassette player combo (as a rule, there is always one component on these multifunction gizmos that does not work; the cassette player was the one that was kaput out of the box), and when I spent many hours and a not insignificant chunk of my meager discretionary starving-student income at the Reynolds Club basement record store, buying albums for the first time:
1. Silly Love Songs, Paul McCartney and Wings
2. Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Elton John and Kiki Dee. Even though I was in a major Elton John phase then, I could take or leave this one.
3. Disco Lady, Johnnie Taylor. Oh yes I am.
4. December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night), Four Seasons
5. Play That Funky Music, Wild Cherry
6. Kiss And Say Goodbye, Manhattans
7. Love Machine (Part 1), The Miracles
8. 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Paul Simon
9. Love Is Alive, Gary Wright
10. A Fifth Of Beethoven, Walter Murphy and The Big Apple Band. I plead the fifth.