August 8, 2007 | Filed under: Life Has a Soundtrack

There is this phenomenon that occurs when The Shit Goeth Down and suddenly I can’t listen to a substantial portion of my music collection without fear of my head exploding. I do a lot of skipping whatever iPod shuffles up for me. Adios, Ryan Adams. So long, half of the songs Dave Matthews has recorded. Sorry, Norah Jones, we’ve instituted a 100% media blackout for you.

Instead, I have in heavy rotation Carly Simon and Janis Joplin and Joan Jett and The Cranberries. And Alanis Morissette. A LOT of Alanis. I know, it is so very “stereotypical girl,” but it’s the unfortunate truth. I blame my sister, for owning the entire Alanis collection and subjecting me to it while we drove through the California wilderness.

[Aside: How excited am I that Alanis and Ryan broke up? Woo! I mean, I feel bad for the two of them, but I need a new bitter-and-angry Alanis album, as I've already appropriated all the existing songs in that genre to other people* and my brain won't let me double up.

*Oh, don't worry, I've appropriated one to me, as well.

Alanis: Are you still mad?
Me: Of coooooooooourse I am.]

All of the song-skipping gets to me eventually and iTunes makes a fortune off of me as I get itchy for some new, non-head-exploding music in the collection. Which explains why my iPod now contains a healthy dose of late ’80s classics, songs reminiscent of college, and, combining those two qualifications, what is quite possibly the best album ever released.

And yet, even after all of the head-purging and the song-skipping and the new-music-acquiring, there will come a night when I’ve spent much of the evening talking to new friends about (and therefore mentally reliving) my move here from DC, and while I’m driving home, impatiently flipping radio stations, I will recognize this song in two notes and I will leave it on, against my better judgment, because I still know all of the words.