A five and a half hour iTunes dreamtime shuffle:
• Elvis Costello & The Imposters — Delivery Man
• Mark Lanegan Band — Bubblegum
• Paul McCartney — Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
• Paul Simon — Surprise
• Ray Davies — Other People's Lives
• Rufus Wainwright — Release the Stars
• Steve Earle — Transcendental Blues
(A note on Steve Earle: "The Galway Girl", featured on
Transcendental Blues, is a pretty big song in Ireland. At first I was surprised when Desmond, our tour guide to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, tried to rally everyone to sing along. But I was even more impressed when the "house band" (their pictures are on the walls) at
Oliver St. John Gogarty's in the Temple Bar district of Dublin named Steve Earle. I had no idea he actually wrote the song. But he did a damn good job. The Irish, apparently, adore it.)