I followed the instructions for a meme on Elizabeth Bear’s LJ:

Put your music player on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results. The first line of the twenty-first song is the title.

I let the music play in the background, letting the work on the meme act as a break timer while plowing through several thousand unread items in Google Reader. (Letting one obsessive Internet activity balance another appealed to me.) Once I discarded instrumentals, song mashups, and foreign-language stuff—which, taken together, were actually the majority of the songs selected—the “poem” came out like this:

Taking Samples from Other People’s Records is One of the Most Widespread and Controversial Aspects of Computer Music

An old cowpoke went riding out one dark and windy day
With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound
Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma
This is the greatest and best song in the world

Where were you on November 22, 1963
Look at what’s happened to me
Hey I’m not a young man any more
Well hello there little boy don’t be shy

You look like a perfect fit
A long long time ago
Tonight it’s very clear
I know all there is to know

I’ve been having a bad, bad day
What goes up may not come down
You are likely to be eaten by a grue
Here we go

Down in the boondocks
We’re the casualties
My sweet lord
He’s so fine

Further evidence that random can be good, and surprisingly cohesive, but also a little bit scary. (It comes across as much darker lyrically than the playlist is musically.)

The songs:

1. Dean Reed – Ghost Riders in the Sky
2. Blue Öyster Cult – Godzilla
3. Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
4. Tenacious D – Tribute
5. Steinski & Mass Media – The Motorcade Sped On
6. Joey Scarbury – Believe It Or Not
7. The Velvet Underground – I’m Not A Young Man Anymore
8. Voltaire – BRAINS!
9. Aimee Mann – Save Me
10. Don McLean – American Pie
11. Peter Cetera – Glory of Love
12. Barcelona – I Know What You Think of Me
13. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cast [Marti Noxon] – The Parking Ticket
14. The Minibosses – song c(asptan)
15. MC Frontalot – It Is Pitch Dark
16. Southside Reverb – Here We Go
17. Billy Joe Royal – Down In The Boondocks
18. Red Delicious – Casualties
19. George Harrison – My Sweet Lord
20. The Chiffons – He’s So Fine

The title is from the meta-mashup track f.d. by Dummy Run.