To help make the 20+ minutes between the moment I set foot out my apartment door and the time I set foot in the office at work more enjoyable, I sometimes pick a favorite album of mine and see if I can recite the album in a whispered tone along my walk using nothing more than my memory. Its the musical equivalent of a crazed lunatic talking to himself on the side of the street, only a lot quieter. Though the decibel level is a little higher than it would be had the student population returned to Austin and also been on the sidewalk with me as they walked to work. The streets of West Campus are a pretty barren place this time of year. It's nice...

Its a fun little memory exercise, and if you're a musically inclined person such as myself, it can be a fun pitch exercise. I'm not sure if I'm right on pitch with the actual recordings I'm singing, but if its an album that I know intimately, I bet that I'm not far off the mark.

Due to an internet cold war that could possibly turn into a hot war in a moment's notice, yesterday's walk to work recital was singing different parts of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Today, I'm not sure why exactly, I chose to sing the second half of Abbey Road as I trekked to work. For anyone not familiar with the work of the Beatles, this is probably some of the best work they've ever done. Its really nothing more than 8 songs perfectly wound together.

I did pretty well in reciting this from memory, but there were times when I'd get stuck at the end of a song and not know what came next. So I'd be stuck singing "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven/All good children go to Heaven" two or three too many times before I'd remember how the next song started.

I'm usually not great with lyrics but I think I did okay. Of course, there really was no way to check as I went along. I think I did alright.

Its kind of weird, the things we remember. I do just well singing nearly two full Beatles albums, yet I don't know that I'd get past the first couple of words of the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution.

Yeah, that's a statement on something. Gotta love that level of privilege.

- Matthew