Jason had this meme on his blog, and it struck me as so cool that it actually brought me out of blogging lurkdom. This is how it works:

Step 1: Get your playlist together, put it on random, and play.

Step 2: Write down the first line from the first 25 songs that play or close to it.

Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song the lines come from.

Step 4: Cross out the songs (or similar) when someone guesses correctly.

To submit your guess, just leave a comment (and remember, comments will disappear into the moderation queue until I get to them, which I will try to do faithfully even though I’ll be stuck with a dial-up connection over the next few days).

Given the obscurity of some of the songs on my iPod, I’m thinking that this could be a challenge, but who knows.

And yeah, I’m back. Maybe. More on that, and on my prolonged absence, one of these days.

1. How often she has gazed from castle windows o’er, and watched the daylight passing within her captive wall

2. So close and yet so far away and all the things I’d hoped to say will have to go unsaid today

3. With the shipwrecked sailors searching for some fools’ gold

4. Standing here now you wash over me

5. Close my eyes, feel the fire

6. Here she comes across the street but I’m already there downstairs to meet with her

7. Two days past 18, he was waiting for the bus in his army green(Jason)

8. In 1649, to St. George’s Hill, a ragged band they called the Diggers came to show the people’s will (Marcia)

9. Within the fire and out upon the sea

10. She said she was leaving so I went to follow

11. A teenage dream so hard to beat (CK, Tom, Chris)

12. So messed up, I want you here (Tom, CK)

13. I’m gonna hide if she don’t leave me alone

14. This place is a prison and these people aren’t your friends

15. I’m quitting, giving up on being good enough

16. Bad liquor, bad liquor, who took the good out of the bottle? (Jason)

17. You’ve finally gone and done it, broke it right in two

18. In your white lace and your wedding bells, you look the picture of contented new wealth (Chris, Tom)

19. This is the lotus hour, it’s time for us to leave (Tom)

20. You can say the sun is shining if you really want to, I can see the moon and it seems so clear

21. On a night like this you can’t brush away all the faces in the street

22. Well I wish I’d known your name (Phillip)

23. I am a dull and simple lad (Jason)

24. We used to say “There’d come the day we’d all be making songs” (Marcia; partial credit to Phillip)

25. I jumped straight at it when I had the chance (Jason; partial credit to Tom)

(Some of these actually include the song title in the lyric, which seems sneaky, but I was just following the dictates of my iPod on shuffle, which also accounts for why one artist is represented twice here. And then again, some of them even I had to look up, so it will all even out, I guess.)