"I'll Be Forever Loving You" The El Dorados Vee-Jay: The Definitive Collection
"I'll Be Good To You" The Brothers Johnson Ultimate Disco 30th Anniversary Collection
"I'll Be Home For Christmas" Diane Schuur Christmas for Lovers
"I'll Be Home For Christmas (Garry Hughes Remix)" Joe Williams Christmas Chill
"I'll Be Loving You" King Khan & BBQ Show Invisible Girl
"I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" New Kids On The Block Like Omigod! The 80's Pop Culture Box
"I'll Be There" The Jackson 5 Hitsville USA, Vol. 1: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971
"I'll Be There For You" (the theme from "Friends") The Rembrandts Whatever: The 90's Pop and Culture Box
"I'll Be Your Mirror" The Velvet Underground & Nico The Velvet Underground & Nico
Charles and I have an ongoing debate about the music collection - we get new music, and I immediately rip it to the computer and into the iTunes library (the iTunes decision is a rough one which I will pick up later, but sticking to the point). At this point almost all of our listening opportunities are hard-drive based. Neither of our cars have mp3 players or even ports to connect them, so that is the exception and even that will probably change in the next few years as the cars wear down and need replaced. So, we inevitably have a . . . I don't know what exactly. It isn't an argument - neither of us care about it that much. While I used the word debate it isn't even that thorough. Let's call it a periodic recognition of a basic philosophical difference. Charles firmly believes that just because we have obtained something, there is no obligation to keep it forever. If you don't like it, why are you letting it take up space indefinitely. I, on the other hand, argue that there is no point in deleting songs - they take up very little space and there is always the possibility you might one day want them.
This is not a new, digital, aspect of our personalities. While Charles forces herself to regularly clear away some things she is not using, I tend to keep everything. Books, records, clothes . . . I have a box of old board and role-playing games in the garage that I literally have not opened in over 20 years, but I don't get rid of it. Since I find it difficult to part with things that take up actual space, getting rid of 1's and 0's is next to impossible. Part of this is a completist tendency - if I am interested in something, I want to have everything related to it. I am that Who fan who bought Scoop and tried to justify Chinese Eyes. I owned every Talking Heads album including Naked, and tracked down albums by The Bunch and The Golden Palominos just because Richard Thompson played on them. This has tempered somewhat as I have gotten older - I didn't run out to buy Magic just because I like Born to Run. (although 4 Paul Simon albums appeared in one afternoon, but I can justify that I swear).
The other piece is that it all marks time - when you listen to music, wear certain clothes, read a book, that is what you are doing at that moment. When you hear that song, pick up that book, or wear those clothes, you are returned to that moment in some small way. I have trouble giving that up. And music is certainly the most likely opportunity to revisit that moment. Even though I think I will, I almost never re-read that book, and I admit that even I would be appalled to put on some of the clothes (although some might argue not appalled enough or often enough), songs last. I revisit albums and songs much more often - my sons know all the words to Bettie Serveert's first album even though they have never heard it anywhere other than in my car . . . for the past 15 years. It is not an act of pure nostalgia, either. Every time you listen to a song, you are not only hearing it again, but you are hearing it for the first time. As you grow older and your life changes, your interaction with that song changes. Sometimes this change makes the song irrelevant - sometimes listening to the Who I cringe at how overwrought the lyrics are and at how much I used to care about them. Other songs remain relevant because they reach back to that place in your past - the Replacements' "Left of The Dial" has become a dead metaphor at this point, but it puts me back in my twenties when that phrase meant a certain thing about who you were and what you did. Still others change and remain relevant in a wholly current way - "Little Wing" is a timeless work of beauty that leaves me awestruck every time I hear it. It was made at a particular time, but it is not of a time. (this may be a different point). Because I can always go back to so much music, I am loathe to get rid of any of it. Just because I have not listened to it in a very long time, does not mean I will never listen to it again.
Of course, my arguments are invalid when I come across "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" and the theme to "Friends." Once again, Rhino's need to preserve the missteps of our cultural past goes far beyond anything I could conceive and the whole company sometimes seems like it should be on an episode of "Hoarders." The good and the bad of this are ever-present on their website - for every complete Smiths reissue (re-mastered by Johnny Marr, so I assume he just mixed Moz so far behind the guitars he can barely be heard, which would be fine with me), there is a live set from Twisted Sister or Iron Butterfly. I never wanted to hear New Kids On The Block in the first place, I can't think of a time when I would want to play this song again (I liked Donnie in Band of Brothers though). The Rembrandts (who apparently were an actual band, not just a creation for this song) made a throwaway piece of jangle-pop that became the aural signature for a cultural phenomenon. That doesn't make it less of a throwaway song or a moment in time I am going to want to go back to. These are songs I can all but guarantee I am never going to listen to again, and that I will probably skip through if they come up on the shuffle.
I still didn't delete them, though.
A couple other quick thoughts:
- Sound like the Brothers' Johnson cribbed their chorus from Bill Withers' "Lovely Day."
- It is a toss-up for favorite song in this set between King Khan and Nico.
- Check out the back half of the Jackson's video, in which Diana Ross and Michael literally wrestle each other for center stage.
