The Music Shuffle

There’s a lot of shuffling going on.

We shuffle the deck, shuffle our feet and sometimes shuffle off to Buffalo.  These days we even shuffle our music. Shuffle our music?  I can just hear the teenagers of the 70’s and 80’s tilt their heads and question, How do you do that, man? Well first you need to get past the record player and understand that some day, in the not so distant future, you’ll be able to carry all of your music in the palm of your hand, or your jeans pocket and have it play in random order and not just in the order as dictated on Side A of your vinyl pizza.  No Way Dude, they exclaim to which you reply, Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

I reminded myself of this miraculous invention while at the gym.  I was on the elliptical, iPhone tethered to my body via the long thin headphones.  I chose my music library as my audio source for distraction, and I did what I normally do – I didn’t scroll down through my music list in search of a song or artist, I just hit that beautiful little word in the left hand corner – Shuffle. Instantly, I’m propelled anywhere from my childhood to the current top radio hit.  The mixed bag of songs I’ve downloaded from various sources is a melting pot of my life and the music I enjoy.  Each person’s music collection is as distinct and unique as their fingerprints – no two exact.  (Isn’t that cool?!). One of the amazing things about music to me has always been its transformative power – to unlock the memory doors in your brain of where you were when you first heard a song, or bubble up the emotions connected to a particular verse or lyric.  It’s amazing.  It’s as if music itself is one of those futuristic time traveling pods, that warp speeds us through our lives faster than you can tap the arrow on your iPhone. I have an eclectic taste in music – or at least I think I do.  I know children’s song, choir hymns, Girl Scout credos, summer camp songs, rock-n-roll, big band, Broadway ballads, disco, pop and hip-hop.  I know them all, I’ve enjoyed them all.

And before you get all skeptical on me, here’s a funny example.

I got on the subway one Saturday heading downtown (as I’m ought to do) and for some reason this day, I decided to headphone it in my travels.  (I don’t usually do this as I like to listen to the sounds of the city and the conversations of people along the way.). But this day, I was plugged in.  My music was on Shuffle and my phone was tucked into my pocket so I was the taking the lazy way out, listening to whatever came next in this techno shuffle mystery.  I got on the 6 train going downtown, along with my fellow New Yorkers and visiting tourists.  It was the usual grab bag of humanity – old, young, and a rainbow coalition of ethnicities.  On my phone comes Eminem’s “I’m Not Afraid” anthem of fearless living.  I love this song.  Why?  Because it has a strength and a bravado that I envy.  It brings out my inner badass whenever I hear it – my counterculture mentality of giving life the finger.  The beauty and intensity of it all.  So, as the song plays, I look around, knowing that no one around me can hear what I hear (I don’t subscribe to the blaring music of many unsuspecting youth who are on the short road to hearing aids.  Take that young people!  See what this song does to me?!). I smile and chuckle to myself as I wonder what anyone would say if they pulled out my earbuds and could hear Eminem’s profanity shoot out into the subway car.  I imagine a number of people would be shocked.  Shouldn’t you be listening to NPR or some Easy Listening station lady?  Eminem is a rapper – not a crooner.  My response would be simply this – I like it.  I get it.  The truth is, the stereotypes we assign to everyone we come in contact with extends its ugly tentacles into our belief systems.  You shouldn’t be listening to Eminem – and my shrugged shoulder response would be “Why not?”. The even crazier epilogue to this story is that when my daughter was young and Eminem was the “It” artist, she was wild about him – buying his CD’s and lining her walls with Eminem posters.  I even, begrudgingly, bought her the Eminem book for Christmas one year – even though I thought Eminem was just a never Devil among the heathens of music.  The irony that I enjoy his music (and always have I suppose, though the parent in me kept me from enjoying much of what I viewed as inappropriate for young people) and still do, even though I’m a wee bit older now but still a teenager when it comes to my music preferences.

It’s a powerful product – music is – more so than anything else I can think of.  As I was on my Elliptical journey today at the gym, I went from some endorphin boosting favorites songs to songs that reminded of heartbreak long ago (of which I skipped as quickly as possible.). I was able to manually switch my mood with the help of my index finger.  If only all life were that easy.

Shuffle your feet to your music.  Just keep shuffling.