It's been 7 years since the last time I did this, so I think it's fair to try again and see what comes up. A quick refresher: Open your Music Library and set it to shuffle, then hit play. Each song that comes up is the one that plays during a particular scene in the film of your life.
Opening Credits: "Shiver", Coldplay - Great. A song about a guy who is endlessly devoted to someone, will do anything for them, but that person doesn't give a damn about them, and is not at all secretive about this. Yet the guy doesn't have the sense to pack it in and move on. To be honest, I keep this song in my playlist mostly because I like the guitar parts. It makes me think of the end of Trigun for some reason. Which was certainly more upbeat than this suggests my life is going to be.
Waking Up: "I Don't Have Anything", VAST - Detecting a theme here. A song about a guy who feels devoid of any purpose or feeling without his lover. So either this movie is going to start somewhere in my adult life - maybe near my death, when I'm an aged widower or something - and then go into a flashback of my entire life. Unless we start with me as a little kid, who has one particular stuffed animal he really likes. I did have one of those, a stuffed koala.
First Day of School: "Another One Bites the Dust", Queen - See, now I had this for the opening credits last time. Which was maybe more appropriate. I'm not sure any of the implications of this song playing as I go to school are pleasant. All my illusions of how great school is gonna be are repeatedly shattered - unfriendly teacher, bullies, bad food, hit in the face with a dodgeball in gym. I guess we could go a funny route, and have me answering question after question correctly. I was that sort of nerd in elementary school, but I became to cool and jaded to give answers to questions in class without prompting.
Falling in Love: "Schizophrenic Conversations", Staind - A song about someone who doubts themselves and their judgment constantly, but doesn't feel the other person understands that. This really seems like a song that would better suit breaking up, but I guess it could be about an internal argument whether to ask the person out, what to say, what to do, whether to keep going, whether the feelings are genuine or not, whether their feelings for me are genuine or not. But maybe I open up and they understand and it's all good.
First Love Song: "Honky Tonk Woman", The Rolling Stones - My question is, would this song be about the lady in question, or just be a song that was playing as we met? It seems a little on the nose for the lady I fall in love with to be a "honky tonk woman", however you care to define that, and oh look, that's the song playing. So let's say it was playing on the jukebox in some bar I was hanging out in, probably with Alex, and we wound up playing pool, and there you go.
Breaking Up: "I'm Just a Killer For Your Love", Blur - Yikes. So I've officially gone psycho stalker. Sure, it could refer to her, but let's be honest, after those first two songs set the tone for me being really obsessed and fixated, it's probably me. I'm not liking Movie Calvin very much. I think he needs a smack upside the head from Blog Calvin.
Prom: "Baroque-A-Nova", Mason Williams - Uh, I got nothing. It's at least a very light, airy song, with lots of, what do you call it when people just make sounds instead of words, vocalizing? Lots of 'bah, bu-bah, bah, bah, bah". Seems kind of strange after that previous song. Maybe I recovered quickly and found someone new I'm happy with in a vague, undefined, and silly way. That's assuming, of course, this is the order these things would occur in the film. Maybe prom comes before the break up.
Mental Breakdown: "Ride With Me", Steppenwolf - Well, the guy singing seems to be very confused about a lot of things. It seems like he wants to work towards some goal, equality, or rights, something, but he's uncertain what to do, or how to do it. Where to go, who to trust. But there is one person, his baby, who he wants to ride with him to the end of the day. So I could find myself at a crossroads, and I turned to her to help me. If we're broken up, she's not there, or even if she is, she can't help, so I fall apart. Wow, this is a seriously depressing film. It is gonna win so many independent film awards, and I would totally win a lot of Oscars if only Academy Voters had any balls (I read some piece on Grantland yesterday about that eternal argument, how certain films should have won, but didn't because the voters lack "balls").
Driving: "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", Daft Punk - Yes, I would certainly drive places with this song playing, though that's true of every song since everything in my library gets a turn in my CD players at some point. In seriousness, if we treat this as happening after the breakdown, it could be me trying to get my head right again, by traveling, or just running simple errands to restore my confidence that I can actually handle decisions. Or it could be me trying to ignore my apparently deep-seeded emotional problems by focusing on improving myself physically. So I'm driving to the gym. Or to the canyon (with the top down), where I'm going to jog.
Flashback: "You May Be Right", Billy Joel - This song again? At least it isn't my final battle music this time. So I was a guy who took a lot of stupid chances and had been getting lucky, and I knew it, but I didn't care. If there was any real sense that the recognition that the other person was right was prompting a change in my behavior, this could be me reflecting on all the things my lost love (or friend, or whoever) tried to warn me about, and how I should have listened. But the song is fairly gleeful in the fact that it doesn't care if it's behaving self-destructively. So I'm going to decide recapturing that spirit is the right move? To hell with spiritual growth or whatever I was doing to get harder, better, faster, stronger. It could be about Alex, reflecting on all those times I advised him to slow down, and deciding he's glad he didn't listen. I'm probably making a mistake in focusing the songs too much on me. There have to be other characters with growth and development (or at least some attention paid to why they aren't growing).
Getting Back Together: "Ruby Tuesday", The Rolling Stones - So we're getting back together to a song about a woman that's leaving because that's just how she has to be, and you accept that? So we're in an open relationship? Friends with benefits? Long-distance relationship? Or we're reuniting by one of us quitting our job at a Ruby Tuesday and moving someplace else. If that's the case, I vote for her to be the one who was working there. I refuse, even in a movie where I had a mental breakdown, to work in the food service industry. I am completely unsuited for it, temperamentally.
Wedding: "Hey Lawdy Mama", Steppenwolf - Man, really? This isn't even one of my favorite Steppenwolf songs, and it's hardly the sort of thing to play on a wedding day. Maybe for the honeymoon, the constant moving about, searching for something. But even then, it's not a very happy song. Kind of a "Wherever you go, there you are" song. Our attempt to flee food service has apparently not solved everything.
Birth of a Child: "42", Coldplay - We're having a kid? What the hell, Movie Calvin?! I didn't agree to that! Then again, the song opens with, 'Those who are dead, are not dead, they're just living in my head.' Which, not unlike the wedding song, is hardly a joyous thing to be thinking. I guess one of us could have recently lost a parent who would have loved to have seen their grandbaby, and so we reflect upon that. The music picks up in tempo for the last minute, but the lyrics are still talking about someone thinking they're a ghost, because they didn't make it to Heaven, so again, not cheerful. Add another 5 Academy nominations into your calculations.
Final Battle: "We Hate You, Please Die", Crash & The Boys - Now we're talking! That's the kind of visceral emotion we need for a final battle! No namby-pamby, "you might be wrong, but you might be right" stuff here. This is from the Scott Pilgrim movie. It's only a minute long, so someone's gettin' steamrollered. If we assume I am the hero of this picture - and practically every other song to the contrary, I contend I am - then I must have won. The bad guy would drag things out (see the nearly seven minute song I died to the last time I did this), whereas I will simply beat his ass and move on, because I'm not a vengeful person. Ha.
Death Scene: "Pinball Wizard", The Who - So in my waning moments, I have come to accept that there are strange and glorious things in this universe I can't really comprehend, I can only enjoy them for what I can perceive. I don't know, that's what I'm getting from this. Unless I'm going to become a messianic figure of awe and reverence based on my skill at some particular thing. Ooh, ooh, I want it to be playing pool! Unless this movie involves me getting Spider-Man powers, then using them to be awesome at basketball, in which case, let's go that way. Note: The film probably won't involve me getting me Spider-Man powers.
Funeral Song: "Ramblin', Gamblin' Man", Bob Seger - If this song is the summation of my life, then Movie Calvin is a very different creature. The "ramblin'" part isn't entirely untrue, for a given range of ramblin', but gamblin', and the part about not bein' shy, yeah, those are pretty different. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, given some of the other stuff Movie Calvin's gotten into, with the stalking and beatdowns and all. At least it sounds like my funeral will be pretty swingin'.
Ending Credits: "Green River", Creedance Clearwater Revival - OK, that's creepy. Out of nearly 800 songs, the shuffle pulled up the exact same song for the ending credits I got last time. On the other hand, that means I can just reuse what I did last time. Happy wake, everyone continuing the singing and dancing they were doing at my funeral. Though that makes it sound like they were happy I died this time. Well, I was kind of crazy, and I probably gambled away all my money. Great, it's a pauper's grave for Calvin. Add two more independent film festivals awards to your calculations.
It's strange. Given I've probably at least doubled my pool of songs in the last 7 years, I had 3 repeats from last time, including one in the exact same spot. Even though I would figure over two-thirds of my music is from the last 25 years, 10 out of the 17 songs are probably from before 1980. Anyway, this movie seems much more downbeat than the last one, and the last one included a 7-minute death scene that was all about my disillusionment. Hmm. Well, I've added 4 other CDs to the library since then, so I may have to retry this now that I have some Weird Al in the mix.
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