When There's Lightning...

I like to listen to music when I'm working. It helps me focus and I get more done when I have music playing. Usually I'm just using my iPod but I will also listen to Pandora (which seems to misunderstand what music I'm in the mood for a lot of the time...even if I specify), Houndstooth Radio, or The Late Riser's Club on WMBR (I sometimes have a problem connecting to their feed for some reason. It's super annoying because I'm only like 4 blocks away from them but I can't get a radio signal AT ALL in this building so I have to rely on the streaming feed). This morning it was the trusty ol' iPod's turn to shine. As a crusty old dude who grew up on vinyl records, mixed tapes and eventually mixed CDs, I'm still kinda blown away by the idea of having the bulk of my music collection in one super convenient device. I haven't ripped every CD I own yet (mainly because it is such a profoundly boring task) but I'm more than 3/4 of the way through 'em and I still have a huge amount of space left on this thing.

With it set to randomly play all the songs housed within it's tiny hard drive, what gem do you think it served up this very morn at 8:11? Dio – Holy Diver. Heh. Ok, iPod, is that how the day is going to start out? Bring it. Dio did just that. Check this shit out: "Ride the tiger, you can see his stripes but you know he's clean. Oh, don't you see what I mean?"  Um, no Ronnie. I can safely say that I have no bloody idea what the fuck you mean. I don't normally hold songwriters accountable to have their lyrics be literal. I can appreciate a hidden meaning or a clever turn of phrase as much as the next guy. I mean gimme a nice metaphor and I'm on board for whatever you're trying to say. But I suspect that Ronnie might have been just trying to have a tiger in his song cuz he thought they were cool. Especially a clean tiger, they're the coolest.