Music evolution

i've rekindled my interest in compiling songs for my Life Soundtrack; a project i started a year ago. as of today, i'm now up to seven songs, and i've got them on the speakers right now. the order is as follows:

Nowhere Man - Beatles

America - Simon and Garfunkel

Out on the Weekend - Neil Young

Self Serve Gas Station - Rheostatics

Here Comes a Regular - The Replacements

Subversives - Lowest of the Low

Nautical Disaster - The Tragically Hip

i really like the flow of these songs, and the soundtrack is really coming together. i might include the live versions of America and Gas Station, for it is these versions i'm more familiar with. total running time, about 28 minutes.

I was thinking about how music comes to define our lives. each of us can probably pick a handful of moments or periods in our life when our music tastes evolved or became defined. a highschool dance, summer camp, a boyfriend or girlfriend, the long commute to and from a job, drinking buddies....

for me, three such times defined my tastes (at least three, off the top of my head). the first was when i was about 10. one saturday afternoon, my mom and dad came home after shopping. they brought with them 3 double albums - the Red and Blue albums by the Beatles, and the Beach Boys' Endless Summer. I listened to those red and blue albums constantly. the second event was when my younger brother, for Christmas, bought my older brother the triple Neil Young CD Decade. I think I listened to the album more than he did. it introduced me to a world of neil, and led me to csny, buffalo springfield and others from those eras. the third was a two-and-a-half month period i spend in pickle lake, ontario, in the late 1980s (look it up on a map!). it's about as far north as roads went in ontario back then. i worked for a gold-exploration company. i befriended a couple of guys who introduced me to some musicians i'd never heard of.. the replacements, robyn hitchcock, green on red, the new york dolls.... i still have the mixed tape from that winter. the impact of this period is obvious, with the replacements making it to my soundtrack. i also just found a green on red cd on ebay and ordered it this morning. one of their songs might make the final cut too.

within the next week, i should have 2 or 3 more songs to add.

stay tuned....