Sorting Out My Story

I’ve been doing a bit of spring cleaning the past few days. Granted, it’s more like summer cleaning at this point. But the season hardly matters; there’s plenty to be done all year long. It isn’t even cleaning, really. The actual cleaning might get done next month, because this is actually organizing. Specifically, I’ve been sorting out the music I’ve acquired in the past year or two. It has piled up much faster than it has been straightened out. The neglect has left scattered piles of CDs. Some will be sold and some will be saved. All will get another listen or two. There’s a box full of burned CDs that are at least in alphabetical order so I can weed through them with some efficiency. A favorite record store has been going out of business since December, so I’ve been visiting more frequently. But since I can never just visit, I’ve got stacks of wax shoved into storage boxes. Much of it will never get enjoyed until long after Orpheus has closed its doors for good. All in all, it’s a mess, and it needs my immediate attention.

No. 1 on the list is, well, updating my list. Gone are the days when I could recall every song on every album in my collection. Without a typewritten inventory, I would now run the risk of buying duplicate copies of some discs. And you don’t want to have any duplicates in your recent past when you’re trying to convince your wife that the family library would really benefit from the addition of Hip-O Select’s new Chuck Berry set, “Johnny B. Goode: His Complete ’50s Chess Recordings.”

I’m used to preparing these arguments, though, and justification is one of my favorite approaches. Here are some of my favorite lines of reasoning:

“We really should have more (insert rock and roll, country, blues or jazz luminary here) in our collection.”

“I went out and bought a (insert recently deceased rock and roll, country, blues or jazz luminary here) CD today. We really should have had more than we did.”

“I know that we’ve already got these tracks, but we really should take advantage of the remastering.”

“It’s got four bonus tracks.”

“It’s a little more than I’d like to pay, but it’s really hard to find.”

And, one of my all-time favorites:

“I’m doing it for our little girl.”

I’m going to give my wife the credit she richly deserves: Sharon is a smart lady, and she’s not really falling for any of these lines (though she occasionally is swayed by remastering). She might even resent my using our daughter as means of carting more music into our house. To her further credit, she rarely calls “bullshit,” and generally encourages me to do as I please provided we can pay the bills, clothe the baby and save a bit at the end of the month. In return, I try to keep it within reason.

I have to admit that I reap most of the benefit from the bulk of my purchases. My wife isn’t really interested in academic pursuits such as comparing the two versions of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Street Survivors” album (which recently led to the purchase of a Deluxe Edition). When Sharon is moved by a song or an artist, she goes out and gets what she wants. But she doesn’t spend her spare moments wondering why we don’t have more Bobby Charles on our shelves. It doesn’t bother me that Sharon isn’t very interested in these things. I love her as much for the ways we are different as I do for the traits we have in common.

Kidding aside, “doing it for our little girl” is part of what motivates me to buy music. But it does please me to think that Harper will enjoy inheriting our music collection. Though it’s a nice thought, I’ve got no reason to expect that it will be the case. She may not enjoy the same styles of music. She may not enjoy music at all. (But it appears she will; if I had to guess, I’d say her favorite artist is Flight of the Conchords, Amy Winehouse or Vampire Weekend. That’s pretty hip taste for a 2-year-old). Even if Harper is a music fan, all those CDs and LPs may still be a burden to her. They’ll take weeks to load into her iPod. More likely, she and millions of other fans will pay a monthly fee for a subscription service. In theory, she’ll have a “collection” beyond my wildest dreams. And she can have it all for $17.95 a month.

But maybe, just maybe, she won’t want to rent her music. Maybe she’ll be keen on having a collection. Maybe she’ll be a collector, too, and will recognize the effort that went into rounding up the EPs, B-sides and back-catalog albums. If she’s aware of all that, I hope she also knows that I did it not only for my edification, but for her education.

If there’s just a chance that will happen, then all this sorting will be well worth it to me. Of course, I’d do the buying and the sorting regardless. But it would be gratifying to see my justifications lent just a little bit of credibility.