“If music be the food of love, play on!”  Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1.  William Shakespeare

I started to make a list yesterday of of “Music I can’t live without” and it turned out to be “Music I really like right now.”  It ranges from the sublime “Rhapsody in Blue” to the lyrical “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Josh Groban to …. “F*** You” by Cee-Lo Green.

There is a lot of pop, a fair bit of rock, and a surprising amount of country.  Broadway, of course:  “The Flesh Failures/Let the Sunshine In” from Hair, “By My Side” from Godspell, Raul Esparza’s moving “Marry Me a Little” from the 2006 revival of Company, Alice Ripley’s painful “I Miss the Mountains” from Next to Normal.

So this morning found me in the kitchen making pancakes, dancing around in my nightgown to “Woodstock” and the Moulin Rouge! version of “Lady Marmalade” (it had gotten on the playlist by accident)* and Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light.”  This last may be the most wonderful totally incomprehensible song ever.  Unlike Don McLeans’s “American Pie,” R.E.M.’s “End of the World,” or even the Manfred Mann cover of it, this song in no whatsoever takes itself seriously. It is a jumble of barely understandable phrases, and at times it sounds like Springsteen is on the verge of laughing.

As I said, the country surprises me. I never listened to country — in fact rather disdained it — until law school, when my moot court partner forced me to listen to a Randy Travis tape.  (Wendy, I know you are not reading this, but thanks.  I owe you.) I tended to occasionally buy into the stereotype of country listeners as being politically conservative if not somewhat reactionary.  (See, e.g., Toby Keith.  Or not as the case may be).  This is clearly not always true — not of the fans, or even the artists themselves.  Some of the country I have has definite political or social overtones that are clearly in line with my own values:  “Travelin’ Thru” by Dolly Parton, which is one of my life anthems, was from a movie about a transgendered woman and the son she fathered as a teenager, and “We Shall Be Free” by Garth Brooks, was banned from a lot of country stations because it included the line “when we’re free to love anyone we choose.”  And then there are the Dixie Chicks, of course.  And Kathy Mattea and Mary Chapin Carpenter (although whether those two are country or folk is an open question with me.) There are Taylor Swift and Mumford and Sons, which aren’t country but sort of sound like they are, and Lady Antebellum and The Band Perry who definitely are.   And then there is “Gunpowder and Lead” by Miranda Lambert, which is not on the playlist but which I have been listening to a lot lately.  I’m not sure of the lady’s politics, but her view of her own empowerment is refreshing.**

That song interests me because of the contrast between how it was received and the reaction to “Goodbye Earl” by the Dixie Chicks ten years ago.  In both cases, the song involved women who took violent action in self-defense.  The objection to “Goodbye Earl” was  that the woman “got away with murder,” ignoring that they only acted when the law failed to protect them from abusive men.  “Gunpowder and Lead” seems to indicate a shift in opinion, or maybe it is simply that the lady in question shot the guy openly rather than poisoning him and hiding the body. (Do not get me started on Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.”  Had a man acted they way the woman does in this song, he would rightfully have been seen as violent and potentially dangerous, even though it involved only property damage, not personal injury.  Men can be victims of domestic violence as well as women, and this song seems to excuse such behavior.)

There is no rap on this playlist, nor heavy metal.  In fact, the only heavy metal I have in my music library (not counting Led Zeppelin, which I don’t) is “Enter Sandman” by Metallica.  I’m not saying that there is none out there that I would not like, simply that I do not tend to seek out music, but listen to it as I find it, and I just don’t run into much of those genres.

I have written before many times about my musical tastes, so this might be redundant, but to the extent that my music reflects my personality at any given moment, this is who I am right now.

*I have seen and heard a lot of people maintain that this is an awful song.  It may be, but it sure is fun to dance around the kitchen to.

**Just gotta love a woman who was part of a group that did an album called Hell on Heels.