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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Download a Song in Two Minutes OR Surf's Up

One recent morning, not long after I woke up, I found myself moving twice as fast as usual. The reason? I had a song playing in my head--or rather, an instrumental: a classic piece of surf music that, like me, you've probably heard many times but never knew the name of. It's a two minute and thirty-five-second adrenaline rush fueled by just bass, guitar, and an unforgettable drumbeat. (You might remember it from the movie Dirty Dancing: the teenage heroine practices her dance moves to it.)

As I was bopping around to the music in my head, it occurred to me that as good as it sounded in my head, it would sound even better through my computer speakers. Which was when I remembered that we can now download three free songs a week from the library, via Freegal, and keep them forever.

Although I was on a roll, I stopped moving long enough to type the words Dirty Dancing and CD into the library catalog so I could determine the title of the piece, which I learned is Wipe Out (or alternately, Wipeout) by the Surfaris. Since I was due to blog here soon, and thinking of you, dear reader, I decided to time the search and download process, having only tried Freegal once previously, here at the library. All I had to do was:
  • Go to the library's homepage and click on eDPPL, your link to digital books, movies and music at the library
  • Click music
  • Click Freegal
  • Type in my library card number
  • Type Surfaris in the search field
  • Click downlnoad now after my search retrieved the song
  • And select Open with Tunes. (iTunes was already loaded on my computer. Your setup may differ.)
Viola! Wipe Out was playing through my speakers! (And automatically saved to my iTunes library). Although that may look like a lot of steps, it took less than two minutes! There's no long setup process. That's one of the great things about Freegal: you're literally up to speed instantly (even without an energizing song like Wipe Out playing in you head).

What's your go-to song when you need to get energized?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It really is that easy! I have an Android smart phone and I have downloaded from Freegal directly onto my phone. Wonderful service!

Anonymous said...

Burning Down the House and London Calling were always my go-to songs to clean the house.

Linda K. said...

Oh no! Songs running thru my head! Oh no! I want to watch "Dirty Dancing" again! I just uncovered Dave Barry's book "Bad Songs" reminding me of songs like "Muskrat Love" and "MacArthur Park" and all those teen tragedy songs that once mentioned, infiltrate your brains for the entire day! Whether it's Freegal or just a plain old CD or Cassette or even, gasp, an LP or 45. Those songs just keep on running thru our brains reminding us of ... whatever. Oh no! Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue" is stuck in my head!

Laura Adler said...

Cleaning the house to London Calling! I love it! I can just picture Joe Strummer stamping his foot to the beat, guitar in hand, as I push my vacuum cleaner around.

Muskrat Love--now there is a song I would NOT want on repeat in my brain. But sadly, it's sometimes those annoying songs that literally stick.

I still have all my LPs and 45s, and they still play perfectly well on my turntable. I've never understood how people tossed out years worth of beloved records simply because CDs came along, especially if those records were hard-to-find or had sentimental value. Turntables are still manufactured, and I read that records are actually making a comeback of sorts:

http://www.chicagotalks.org/2011/12/29/vinyl-records-are-cool-again/

Linda K. said...

Vinyl is "in" again! Someone donated a bunch of LPs to the Friends Holiday booksale and there were collectors there weeding thru them and walking away with several boxes each. Who knew? We also have a combination player that actually cuts CDs from 45's and LP's and even 78's. (Yes, we still have some old 78's.)

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