Emily and Bob Talk II

The more observant among you may have noticed that I didn't post a favorite song for Music Monday/Lyric Lundi yesterday. That's because I was too busy spending my 3-day weekend (what is this President's Day happening the week before my birthday business? It's supposed to happen the weekend of my birthday, like it always has, so everyone can celebrate for 3 days) communing with all of Bob's and my CDs, which led to the realization that I could probably post a favorite song every day of the year for the rest of my life. I promise I won't, though.

What brought on this weekend of musical communing? Well, Bob and I bought this (exorbitantly-expensive-was-it-really-worth-the-price?-but-it's-just-so-cool) CD storage cabinet. It's made to look like an old library card catalog (for those of you born post-1980, libraries used to have these wooden cabinets with drawers that held actual cards to tell you where books were located in the library). We bought this, because we were beginning to feel the need to use the bookshelf that was housing our CD collection for (guess what) books. Pathetically, we still don't really have enough shelving for all our CDs and books.

Anyway, this meant I had to organize all our CDs alphabetically. That's the way we had them in Connecticut, but for the past sixteen months, since the movers didn't have the courtesy to pack them up in alphabetical order, and we were too eager, by the time we finally got to unpacking them, just to have music back in our lives to bother to take the time to do anything more than get them on the shelves, they'd been shelved all this time in what can only be called a "disorganized mess." I couldn't find anything (partly because, for the first six months we lived here, there was an undiscovered box in the attic that should have been labeled the "CDs-Emily-Particularly-Loves-Whose-Loss-Will-Most-Frustrate-Her" box). It's awful when you're about to take a road trip, are dying to take The Magnetic Fields along with you, and can't find them.

The result of all this organizing and alphabetizing is that for three days, we seemed to listen to music pretty much nonstop. Yesterday seems to have been declared Bob's "Day of The Clash." Thus, in lieu of Music Monday, I am giving you the musically-inspired recent conversation between Bob and Emily.

Bob: I'd forgotten that Combat Rock actually has some really good songs on it.

Emily: Are you kidding? Of course, it does.

Bob: Well, I was always pretty disdainful of "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Emily (trying to hide her apoplexy. Those two songs were the backdrop of her college days): What do you mean? They're both great songs!

Bob: They're so "pop-y" for a band like The Clash. Especially "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" I definitely thought they'd sold out the first time I heard that one.

Emily (who, when she was eighteen, thought "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" was the epitome of "ironic edgy"): Well, I can see that with "Rock the Casbah" but not "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Bob: It was just so anti-Clash. "Pop-y" and a love song, of all things.

Emily: Oh, like "Train in Vain" isn't the least bit "pop-y." (This seemed to fall on deaf ears, but those of you who are listening: was I wrong? Not that I don't love "Train in Vain...")

This conversation, quite obviously, isn't going anywhere. Mercifully, it ends as Emily gets involved with making an Indian-themed dinner (must have been inspired by "Rock the Casbah"), and Bob immerses himself in looking up album reviews in the All Music Guide. As Emily is chopping onions and finds herself unable to keep from stopping in order to improvise a little dance to "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" she suddenly realizes it sounds quite "pop-y." On "American Bandstand," it would most definitely have rated highly for "It was easy to dance to." (But don't tell Bob.)