In response to my hubby’s recent tunequest post about Saint Etienne, I thought I’d share this. I discovered this groovy little band independently of him (I was actually in high school at the time) and I think it might be one of the reasons he decided I was cool. When we first started hanging out, he was browsing my CD collection, which was a little weird at the time, since I got a lot of free stuff through my gig as a B&N music manager. Anyway, he came across my copy of Saint Etienne’s Tiger Bay, a relatively obscure album. But since he was also a fan of the band, I think he knew right then that he wanted to marry me…

Anyway, here are the lyrics to Like a Motorway, my favorite song from that CD:

He’s gone
He’s gone

She wears her jeans torn at the waistband.
Her pretty face is stained with tears.
And in her right hand she clasps a letter
I know this means that he has gone.

And in this town of misguided tourists,
She never thought she’d fall in love.
It was a few days after her birthday,
The thrill hostess gave her first kiss.

He said her skin smelled just like petals,
Said stupid things he knew she’d like.
She said her life was like a motorway:
Dull, grey, and long ’til he came along.

He’s gone, he’s gone.

I said “How could he ever leave you?
You two were good, you were so right.”
She said “I wish that he just left me;
He’d be alive, alive tonight.”

He’s gone, he’s gone.
He’s gone, he’s gone.
He’s gone, he’s gone.

A couple of years ago, my-wishes-to-remain-anonymous husband stumbled upon an interesting music community website called Audioscrobbler. The site would link to your iTunes library and iPod and would track the music you listened to. Based on the number of plays each artist received, it would rank your favorites and then find others in the audioscrobbler universe who had similar tastes. I set up my account there about a year ago, and I track it from time to time, although I usually don’t update my iPod often enough to significantly impact the data. Anyway, at some point along the line, the site eventually morphed into last.fm, which is a much cooler version (it’s linked over on the right).

While I dig the concept, there is a teensy flaw: my account doesn’t really reflect my musical tastes. There are two reasons for this. One, I primarily play my iPod when I am working out, so all the songs are exercise songs. This totally skews the data in favor of fast-paced, hip-hoppy songs by artists I don’t listen to in other contexts, like Britney Spears and Trick Daddy. The other problem is Mariah Carey. Somehow she has managed to insinuate herself into my top-five-all-time-favorite artists. I have no idea how this happened, since she only has one song I like, and I’ve only played it, like, three times, ever. It really annoys me, since Mariah Carey is a terrifying beast. However, my top artists also include Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, and Bif Naked, who really are some of my favorite musicians. So now I’m kind of on a mission (albeit a half-assed one) to play my favorites more often, in an attempt to skew the site back toward my real tastes. For now, anyway. It probably won’t take long for me to totally stop caring, but I’ll let you know when I hit that point.