Howzabout a meme to while away a Thursday afternoon? Here’s one I picked up from SamuraiFrog.

The set-up: Answer the questions using only song titles from ONE artist.

I’m sure my Loyal Readers are already rolling their eyes in their anticipation of which artist I’m going to pick for this exercise, so you know what? I’m going to confound your expectations and go with… Jimmy Buffett. Yes, that’s right, Mr. Margaritaville, about the most un-Rick Springfield-ish musician you could probably imagine, at least from within the pop-rock spectrum of the last 40 years. I realize I haven’t previously said much about my affection for Jimmy, but the fact is, I went through a pretty major Parrothead phase back in college. His imaginary landscape of seedy equatorial port cities populated by lovable scoundrels, misfits, and wanderers was immensely appealing to me at a certain point of my life, back when I was a restless and romantic young man who felt very out of place in his very buttoned-down surroundings. (Oh, who am I kidding? I still feel that way much of the time!) I own every album of his from 1973’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean up through Far Side of the World from 2002, which is when I finally got tired of being disappointed by him. (In my opinion, his work has been on a downhill slide since the early ’90s, when he evidently became more interested in running restaurants and selling t-shirts than writing good, honest songs. The last of his albums that I unreservedly liked was Fruitcakes in 1994, and my favorites actually date from the very early “Key West records” to the mid-80s or so.) He’s released three studio albums since then and I haven’t bothered to listen to a single one of them. But anyhow, let’s get down to answering those questions, shall we?

1. Are you a man or a female?
   “Son of a Son of a Sailor”
2. Describe yourself.
   “It’s Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet”
3. How are you feeling right now?
   “Havana Daydreamin'”
4. Describe the city you’re living in.
   “Stranded on a Sandbar”
5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
   “Far Side of the World”
6. Your favorite form of transportation?
   “Ragtop Day”
7. Your best friend?
   “We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About”
8. Your favorite color?
   “Volcano”
9. What’s the weather like?
   “King of Somewhere Hot”
10. Your favorite time of the day?
    “Stars on the Water”
11. If your life were a TV program, what would it be called?
    “Tryin’ to Reason with Hurricane Season”
12. What is your life like?
    “Growing Older But Not Up”
13. Your current relationship?
    “Perfect Partner”
14. What gives?
    “The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful”
15. You expect what from the future?
    “Cliches”
16. The way you would like to go?
    “On a Slow Boat to China”
17. You wouldn’t mind?
    “Boat Drinks”
18. Your fear?
    “What if the Hokey-Pokey Is All It Really Is About?”
19. Your best advice right now?
    “Treat Her Like a Lady”
20. If you could change your name right now, it would be?
    “Twelve Volt Man”
21. Your motto?
    “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw)?”Oh, come on, surely you knew I couldn’t get through an exercise like this without mentioning that song, right?

I missed out on the heyday of the “let’s see what’s on your iPod” meme by about six years — what can I say, I’m a late adopter, part of that whole “analog kind of guy” thing — but I’ve actually got an iPod now, so when I ran across a variant of this old blogging chestnut on Tumblr last night, I couldn’t resist playing along.

If this is too passe for your tastes, feel free to surf on, but I feel like I’m finally filling a hole in my soul by participating in one of these.

Okay, maybe this experience wasn’t that profound, but it was kind of fun to see what a random sampling of my musical tastes might turn up. Fun for me, at least. Maybe not so much for you. But who’s writing this blog, anyhow?

Right, so, moving on, here’s the intro/instructions:

You can learn a lot about someone by the music they listen to. Hit “shuffle” on your iPod or MP3 player and write down the first 20 songs. No cheating or skipping songs that are shameful. That is the fun!

My list:

1. Calling All Girls — Rick Springfield
2. Windy — The Association
3. The Harder They Come — Jimmy Cliff
4. Shake Your Groove Thing — Peaches & Herb
5. Fall from Grace — Stevie Nicks
6. Heaven Knows — Robert Plant
7. Ask the Lonely — Journey
8. Sweet Talkin’ Guy — The Chiffons
9. Listen to Your Heart — Roxette
10. Mule Skinner Blues — The Fendermen
11. The Road Home — Heart
12. Nothin’ at All — Heart
13. Some Gothic Ranch Action (instrumental from the soundtrack of Rancho Deluxe) — Jimmy Buffett
14. Hot Girls in Love — Loverboy
15. I Can’t Stand It No More — Peter Frampton
16. Real Man — Bruce Springsteen
17. Dance Hall Days — Wang Chung
18. Don’t Look Now — Creedence Clearwater Revival
19. La Bamba — Los Lobos
20. Son of a Preacher Man — Dusty Springfield

Okay. Interesting that the first selection was my main man. I swear I did not set that up. I do wonder, though, exactly how that Shuffle algorithm works. You see, I can go for weeks without hearing anything from a particular genre — oldies, say — and then all of a sudden the machine is kicking out “Sweet Talkin’ Guy” and “Windy” and “Mule Skinner Blues.” Not to mention two songs by the same artist coming back to back… that doesn’t seem terribly random to me. In any event, I suppose this is a reasonably good cross section of my likes: mostly ’70s and ’80s pop-rock, some older stuff, nothing newer than ’89 or ’90, and some Jimmy Buffett thrown in for good measure. Probably nothing my Loyal Readers didn’t expect, right?