My iTunes is acting up again. It’s misreading file pathways and writing over metadata. It’s refusing to talk to Last.fm’s little audioscrobbler plug-in. It’s driving me up the wall, to such an extent that I woke up this morning worrying about it and wondering why I was only four inches from the ceiling. Such is the role that iTunes plays in my life. Such is my addiction to my iPod.
Mine's purple.
I couldn’t give up my iPod, not for Holy God, not for any deity. It goes everywhere with me. It sits in its cradle by my desk while I’m working. It’s stuffed into my pocket whenever I leave the house. It’s jacked up to the car stereo as soon as I sit into the car, to ward off local country n’ western radio stations, or worse, Newstalk. I will go to hysterical lengths to get it just the right kind of headphones, so that it drowns out nasty, natural interference at its optimal capacity. I will sit for hours, putting together playlists for every occasion, even occasions that haven’t happened yet, even occasions that may never happen at all. But one can’t get cocky about the future. There may yet come a time when I need a playlist for “Apocalyptic Mexican Stand-off Love Triangle”. I’m not Mystic Meg, for Christ’s sake.
I have been known to run out of train boarding queues in lockjawed panic because I left my iPod in the car. I honestly wouldn’t get on public transport without music to listen to. Otherwise I’d have to listen to Other People, who I’m sure we can all agree are the worst people on the planet. Nothing chills my blood more than the idea of settling into a long train journey with an unexpectedly drained iPod, and having to listen instead to fourteen middle-class students braying about how much Apple Sourz they drank at the weekend. Or that omnipresent bint who begins and ends every journey roaring down the phone to various heedless loved-ones. Or the over-familiar grandparent who offers you a Murray Mint and takes its acceptance as a go-ahead to launch into an interview about your family tree with an investigative dedication that’d make Vincent Browne look like a catatonic lamb.
iPods are also life-preservers to those of us who love music, rather than that syruped-up death they play on commercial radio stations. The beauty of the MP3 format is that now you can download music to suit your own aural inclinations, rather than the glitzy shite the industry tries to ram down your earholes. Before MP3, we had such a shallow pool to draw from. Your music was chosen for you, mass produced for mass consumption. Now, if you want to listen to operatic death-metal mashed with John F. Kennedy soundbites, or the melodic results of a supermodel fainting onto an effects pedal, you jolly well can. I won’t listen to any mood I didn’t put together for myself. You can’t make me.
So no, there’s no way I could give up my iPod for Lent. Self-denial is one thing. According to overfed princes who sit on golden thrones, self-denial is good for the soul. iPods aren’t just good for the soul, though, are they? They’re good for the soul, the dance, the blues, the rock, the J-pop Latin crossover with ‘80s-reminiscent shoegaze overtones.
My iPod is no luxury, and anyone who tries to take it from me, no matter how consecrated their calling, gets a punch in the jowls.
