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 worldWhere 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 shyYou look like a perfect fit
A long long time ago
Tonight it’s very clear
I know all there is to knowI’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 goDown 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:
- Dean Reed – Ghost Riders in the Sky
- Blue Öyster Cult – Godzilla
- Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
- Tenacious D – Tribute
- Steinski & Mass Media – The Motorcade Sped On
- Joey Scarbury – Believe It Or Not
- The Velvet Underground – I’m Not A Young Man Anymore
- Voltaire – BRAINS!
- Aimee Mann – Save Me
- Don McLean – American Pie
- Peter Cetera – Glory of Love
- Barcelona – I Know What You Think of Me
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cast [Marti Noxon] – The Parking Ticket
- The Minibosses – song c(asptan)
- MC Frontalot – It Is Pitch Dark
- Southside Reverb – Here We Go
- Billy Joe Royal – Down In The Boondocks
- Red Delicious – Casualties
- George Harrison – My Sweet Lord
- The Chiffons – He’s So Fine
The title is from the meta-mashup track f.d. by Dummy Run.