I performed a little hard drive maintenance yesterday and made a separate iTunes library for my hard drive based music (as opposed to the stuff that lives on my laptop). On that hard drive? A whopping 9767 songs, or 25 days worth of music.

Cleaning up iTunes has enabled me to search for stuff I'd forgotten I had, including:

10 songs with Sarah (or Sara) in the title, gathered when I was making a mix for my little sister, Sarah. Represented: Starship, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Ween, Hall & Oates.

4 versions of Mr. Sandman, from my brief obsession with that song.

Want to know what popped up when I hit shuffle? Neither Sarah nor Sandman, but Justin Hayward's Forever Autumn from the 70s musical version of The War Of The Worlds. I recall the first few times (of many!) I heard that gorgeous chord progression. A few years back, this song might have sparked a panic attack. I worked many, many, many long hours on the deluxe 2005 reissue, and as a result, I can say "Martian" in several languages, in stereo, SACD and 5.1 surround.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7vfjJHcfeE&hl=en]