iTunes coughed up a thing and I think to myself: what is this? Mötley Crüe? Turns out to be Soul Asylum. Which, back in 1993, still sounded to me like, you know, they were related to the Replacements or something. Alt-rock, y’know. Then next another thing I don’t immediately recognize and I’m thinking: this sounds like Wham! But it turned out to be Aztec Camera – “Everybody is Number One”, from their Love album. Which, back in 1987 sounded to me, like, I dunno, alt-rock.

And then Belle finally went and signed us up for the iTunes store and downloaded the greatest song ever, which we’ve been missing for 6 years in Singapore. And do you know what the greatest song in the world is: that’s right, it’s Todd Rundgren, “Couldn’t I just tell you”. Greatest. Power pop. Ever. Plus it has the cool/fool rhyme. You really can’t go wrong with that.

I’m lying. In between Soul Asylum and Aztec Camera iTunes coughed up an MP3 of this Delta ad in ebonics (don’t know how that got in there), which was disorienting.

There are some just terrible videos of Rundgren singing his greatest song on YouTube. Here, for instance. But there’s an absolutely fabulous video of him singing “Hello it’s me” on some variety show. He’s got butterfly wings glued to his eyebrows as he sits at the white piano. Elton John would blush. But “Hello it’s me” just isn’t that good, frankly.

There’s a neat Nazz video as well. “Open My Eyes”. Very “The President’s Analyst”. Did you know that the bass player for the Nazz, Carson Van Osten, gave up bass-playing to be a cartoonist for Disney? You can see some of his work here, at a blog I read not infrequently.

Speaking of butterfly wings … (Oh, I’ll try to get to that tomorrow.)