Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

As I think I mentioned before, I’m working in Milwaukee this week, unfortunately missing Valentine’s Day in the company of Mrs. Perils. Dear, since I can’t present you with some of your favorite chocolate delights, I’ve instead created a Valentine’s Podcast of some of the best love songs on my iPod, with you in mind. Any of you who stumble by here are welcome to grab it as well.

Apple didn’t make it easy. Unlike my old Creative Zen Xtra, I can’t just copy mp3 files from the player to my hard drive, not even the mp3 files I ripped from my own collection and didn’t buy from iTunes. The iTunes software will let you do this, but only if you are connected to your “home” music collection, even though all the files exist on the player. Unfortunately, my “home” collection really is at home, sitting on an external hard disk.

Here’s how I beat the system sitting here in my hotel room. You can opt to allow the iPod player to be used as a hard disk. This makes it appear as a lettered drive on My Computer. It also lets you browse the player, and you can find the directory that contains all your iTunes-imprisoned music. However, all the music files are scattered around in multiple subdirectories, with all the helpful filenames encrypted in 4 or 5 characters of alphabits.

I saw that each file would display its music properties when I waved the cursor over it, so I set my “View” parameters to show Artist, Album Name and track number in the browser window, sorted by artist and made the view permanent for all files on the computer. Long story short (right!), I located the songs I wanted and liberated them to the friendly confines of my laptop hard drive.

I used Audacity to make the podcast. Download the podcast here or listen here:

[audio:http://perilsofcaffeineintheevening.com/wp-content/uploads/PerilsValentine.mp3]

(you should probably download & save) - it’s 32mb, so don’t try it with dialup. I’ll also link to files for the individual tunes for a day or so.

Here are the tunes that await your pink and shell-likes:

• Amado Mio - Pink Martini. China Forbes has great pipes, and Thomas Lauderdale’s grand piano makes this the classiest tune on the ‘cast - but listen on:
• Advice for the Young At Heart - Tears for Fears.
  • “Love is a promise, love is a souvenir - once given, never forgotten, never let it disappear”
• Small Wonders - Dog’s Eye View. This band broke up several years ago, despite our unwavering support. This is an unfortunate pattern. If you’re in a band, and you see us at more than one of your performances, pay a bouncer to have us whacked. Peter Stuart, the lead singer, had a short solo career afterwards, but I’ve no idea what became of him.
  • “Walkin’ side by side, with our fear and our hope and our love and our pride; two steps forward, and no lookin’ back”
• Lovesong - The Cure. Unabashed, in-your-face adoration. With a little bit of groveling.
  • “However far away, I will always love you; however long I stay, I will always love you; whatever words I say, I will always love you.”
• Great Expectations - Elbow. A memorable bus ride, fanciful nuptials, unexplained absence and longing.
  • “Spitfire thin and strung like a violin, I was; yours was a face with a grace from a different age”
• Crush - Garbage, from the soundtrack to Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet. Borderline stalker song, but “I’d do time for you” is really another way to say “I love you”, no?
• Blue - Joni.
  • “Blue, here is a shell for you; inside, you’ll hear a sigh, a foggy lullabye: Here is your song from me.”
• Corcovado - Everything But The Girl, from the Red Hot + Rio collection, just to lighten up. I don’t know what they’re saying, but if it’s not hot, it’s false advertising.

Enjoy!