Friday, September 14, 2001

Everywhere, signs…

I have nearly 3,000 songs compressed in MP3 format stored on my laptop computer's hard drive, essentially turning my expensive portable computer into a Walkman jukebox containing a good chunk of my CD collection. Most of the time when I'm at my desk at work, the computer is plugged into a set of small speakers and the whole selection of tracks set for "shuffle" play, meaning any random song can pop up at any time.

A couple of weeks ago, a version of the old Julie Brown comedy song "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" recorded by The Flirtations started playing. After I'd begun singing along, I caught myself thinking that, in light of events such as those at Columbine High School, it was unlikely that this trifle of a song, parodic and outlandish when it was created, would ever see airplay again. It just wasn't funny anymore.

Debbie's smiling and waving her gun,
Picking off cheerleaders one by one:
Oh Buffy's pom pon just blew to bits,
Oh no, Mitzie's head just did the splits.
God my best friend's on a shooting spree;
Stop it Debbie, you're embarrassing me!

Today, seeking a respite from a week when my radio was seldom switched from NPR news, I opened my laptop and started the music playing program, then began working on a proposal I'd been putting off for days.

Did you ever have feeling that there are elemental forces at work conspiring to screw with your head? Sometimes I truly believe that. Today, for example, Fate clasped hands with Shuffle Play, and Karma and Coincidence got jiggy with it.

While I tapped away at the keyboard and silently muttered curses at Microsoft Word, three songs came up in randomly-selected succession: Styx's "Angry Young Man," Elton John's "Take Me to the Pilot" and, finally, John Cougar Mellancamp's "Crumblin' Down".

My hands were shaking as my concentration drifted from my work and I heard the lyrics of the chorus, divorced from the context of the song:

When the walls come tumblin' down
When the walls come crumblin' crumblin'
When the walls come tumblin' tumblin' down.

I shivered. I decided the universe was trying to tell me something. I shut off the computer and went outside and sat under a tree and lit a cigarette and cried for a while. It just wasn't funny anymore.