Music in the Wind

I remember finding a dime on the sidewalk, walking to the corner market, and buying candy. A nickel would buy a chocolate bar, a pack of gum, or a box of candy—I especially liked Bit-O Honey, Milk Duds, and Hershey bars. Anticipating what to pick was almost as much fun as eating it!

A similar thrill of anticipation surges through me when I log in to Freegal, the music database offered by the library. I can download three free songs a week, and oh, it can be so fun deciding which ones to select! To get to Freegal, go to our library’s homepage, and click on the icon for Freegal.

As a person who likes things neat and logical, I have to admit, Freegal could use a few good librarians to bring order to their site. I like to search by genre, but if you click on the link to “See All” genres, the chaotic organization of the site becomes evident. There are headings for Alternative, Alternative Rock, Alternative/Indie, and Alternative/Punk. There is a heading for Comedy and one for Comedy/Humor. I tend to browse mostly in Folk, Rock, and Classical.

The other day I made a list of songs I would like to download, and realized most of them were wistful tunes from my teen years. “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas, “El Paso” by Marty Robbins, and “Darling Be Home Soon” by The Lovin’ Spoonful. I would probably never buy the CDs these songs are on, but I’m so thrilled to be able to add them to my music collection (for free!) and enjoy the occasional flashback to a simpler time of life.



Just so you don’t think the site is only for Baby Boomers, I saw many of the band names my daughter grew up with, such as Pearl Jam, NOFX, and Crash Test Dummies. Freegal also has Broadway tunes for aficionados of musicals, though I found if you want the songs from Jesus Christ Superstar, don’t expect to find them under Andrew Lloyd Webber. That’s another cataloging problem I wish I could fix! For those songs, you have to search by the name of the album or the individual songs.

When I was growing up, people tsk-tsked over the names of bands: Led Zepplin, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company; I even remember a radio host making fun of the Beatles coming to town, implying that they were insects. It just goes to show you can’t judge a band by its name. Some of the band names I found on Freegle seem even more bizarre to me: Ominous Seapods, Salt the Wound, and Made Out of Babies. Maybe I’ll like some of their music, or maybe not. But it will be fun exploring, and while I’m at it, I think I’ll go get a Tootsie Roll pop.