I don’t have a great voice. I have a strong one, and I can keep on key. One of my values to most choirs is that you can find the harmony if you stand near me; I was told this years ago, not that I sing too loudly, but loud enough for the second sopranos or altos to find the note if they’re lost. Which is in part why I know all the women’s parts to the Hallielujah Chorus – my voice kept getting lower in those years. But I can sing along with the Roches really well, even if I keep changing parts.

I’ve wanted to be in a “girl group” for ages. Not, mind you, for the hair or the outfits, but my fantasy is to front The Chiffons. I have no idea exactly why this music appeals to me so much, but I love harmony and still hope to find enough people in the same place at the same time to reenact “Going to the Chapel” as we performed it in a con suite at NOLAcon years ago.

Getting the iPod and putting some old favorites on it – stuff I hadn’t heard for years – has triggered a lot of singing. I have scads of vinyl records which never got replaced by CDs. While we still do have a turntable, it’s a bit of a nuisance to get to and yeah, the whole “not having to turn the thing over” part was really welcome when CDs came along. Now of course, with 1550 things on the iPod, oh man….

Getting CDs from the library and copying cuts into the itunes library has been interesting. Much of it is stuff by familiar artists, much of it from whatever “best of” collection the library might have. The majority of my iPod music is modern country and folk by women artists; Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter take up rows of my CD collection, Kathy Mattea, Connie Kaldor, Kate Wolf, lots of not-really-well-known performers. I’ve got a fair amount of Mark O’Connor with Yo Yo Ma (“Yo! Yo Yo Ma, Mah Man!) (sorry, had a Muppet moment there) and guitar genius Nina Gerber, even a George Winston (the only “new age” performer I like, I think.)

And as I sat here writing, thinking about stuff I REALLY wanted, I downloaded 2 songs from iTunes, using up some of my precious freebie that I got when I won the iPod last year. ($10 does not buy you 10 songs at 99 cents each – there’s TAX involved.) I can put more in the account (or get a iTunes card, which at least wouldn’t go on the credit card.) There are apparently/allegedly “free download” sites but I just don’t know how to use them. What I mean is I went to one earlier today and after signing up for a 2 week free trial, found out they don’t support iPod stuff, so what’s the POINT?

I’ve used the weekly “free download” thingy there twice; once to get the LeeVees “Goyim Friends” - and I probably really DO have to get the album Hanukkah Rocks” because I LOVED that song. And I just downloaded a guitar number by someone I never heard of. I could download everything every week but, well, I’m not that interested I that much current music.

Most of the ITunes website is like Amazon with all this DRECK like recommendations you never asked for, and why the hell would I CARE what Cat Stevens likes to listen to? Jesus, I so hate “celebrity” crap. Or staff favorites? I don’t know these people. Clutter. Bleah.

I can just quietly go and listen to some of the stuff from “Philadelphia Chickens” a phine phine collection of goofy songs from Sandra Boynton, who apparently knows everyone had brought in her friends and neighbors to sing silly songs. “Please Can I Keep It?” by Laura Linney (Please can I keep it, It followed me home, what exactly it is I don’t know”) rocks, as does “The Intermission Song” a fine tune sung by The Aaardvarks includes Mark-Linn Baker. Kevin Bacon and his brother, Kevin Kline, and others appear. It’s a great book, it’s a fabulous CD. It’s got chickens. What more can you ask?

There’s the huge country/bluegrass singer-songwriter clump too, California talent all, from my beloved Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick – one of the country’s finest songwriters – to the California Cajun Orchestra, Good Old Persons and Any Old Time String Band, many but not all featuring Susie Rothfield, one of the few “famous” people I know in music.

Then there are the few rockers – Bonnie Raitt, Melissa Ethridge. Janis. And that’s where the singing tends to start. I try to keep it to back here, in the computer room, where I’m listening with no one around. But occasionally as I’m bombing down the street to the post office I realize well, I must look and sound a wee bit strange, scooting along, singing I have NO idea how loudly. And when I AM singing, I’m usually giving, er, vent. Yes, it’s my inner torch singer coming out. Duck.

I realized as just today I was singing – loudly - along with Linda Ronstadt (LOTS of vinyl, NO CDs), but “I Can’t Help it if I’m Still in Love With You” came up and well, so what if I haven’t heard it in 25 years. I love her stuff and she did some great torch songs. I don’t know what else to call them.

I get nervous about torch songs since so many of them are “he treats me like shit but I love him” songs. But the “I will always love you” and “no one loved you like I did” and the “why can’t you love me?” songs? Oh god, I’m SUCH a sucker for those. And they’re great for voices like mine – not a lot of subtlety, lots of emotion, lots of passion, loud. If I were the “playlist” type, I’d put together an iPod playlist of all those songs but probably it’s better if I just don’t listen to too many in a row. I might be tempted to go out and find a really big STICK and go after the, um, inspiration, the reason I can sing those songs with such heart.

Really big stick. BIG. Large.

But it’s better that I temper those with some more upbeat stuff, or stuff that talks about OTHER things, any other things. Just not “he done me wrong songs”.

Does anyone else get into this guilty pleasure? Singing in the shower, singing along on karaoke night? Loading all that hot new music on the iPod with a separate “don’t let anyone see this” section? Is guilty pleasure music as common as other types of guilty pleasures? (movies, books, tv?)

But maybe, just maybe I need to listen to Bonnie’s “I Can’t Make You Love me” just one more time…..