The day the music died
The music died last week.
Don McLean wrote a famous song about music dying; he was talking about the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens and others. I’m not talking about that.
I’m talking about an iPod, my little digital music player that croaked last week.
It had been dying since last autumn, the first signs coming about five miles down the bike path when I noticed the iPod was not shuffling through my tunes the way it’s supposed to. Instead of moving automatically from one song to the next, I had to push on the screen to skip things along. The lapse was making my time on the bike a little less enjoyable.
Music has been my cycling companion for years, a way to keep me company and keep me on pace. Since I first got the iPod, I’ve amassed a library of about 220 songs – everything from my folk, my favorite, to pop and rock and classical and country. There are even a few Sousa marches on there for inspiration to pedal up a hill.
The iPod is about the size of a playing card folded lengthwise. For years, I had a special holder that attached it to my bike’s stem. When the Velcro wore off on that, I cut up an old bra and have been using a strap to hold the iPod in place.
Since buying the bike 15 years ago, I’ve put many thousands of miles on it, almost all of them pedaled listening to music through one earphone (so I can hear around me with the other ear.)
By the time spring came and I was back on my bike in April, the iPod would play only a handful of songs; it was behaving as if it was playing favorites without my consent. I always liked when Townes Van Zandt’s “Tecumseh Valley” popped up in the rotation. Now I’m sick of it.
Hoping the malfunction was just a matter of the iPod getting wet, I buried it in uncooked rice, a trick that’s been known to repair a smartphone that’s been dropped in water. That set things straight – for about 10 minutes.
After that, the screen was dead. Fiddling with the controls made no difference.
Buy a new one, I thought, but Apple does not make them anymore. Knowing that the generations behind me are more knowledgeable about digital things, I reached out to my son. He said I’m probably the last person on the planet still using an iPod.
“Put the music on your phone,” he said, as if it was that easy.
I use my phone only for texts and for calls. To transfer the music from the iPod to the phone would be like rearranging heavy furniture.
“Even if I were to figure that out,” I said, “there’s no earphone jack on my phone. How would I listen?”
“They’re wireless now, Mom,” he said. Even long distance, I could hear him shaking his head in frustration.
It turns out some people are selling old iPods on places like eBay. For a few bucks you can get one that’s been “reconditioned” with “a few scratches and wear.” Mine is supposed to arrive here this weekend.
If it works, I’ll be back to hearing tunes out on the trail. If it doesn’t, I’ll get my money back and find some young person to load the music onto my phone.
And until then, I’ll ride with two ears wide open. I’ll hear birds singing and wind rustling and the crunch of the path under my tires. All of that will be nice enough, I guess, but where’s my music?