37,941

Any idea what that number is?

Here are some more: 2,330 / 6,125 / 1,323 / 18,635 / 94.78

And a clue: it’s because I am so gotdam anal that I can share them with you.

Another clue: I love music and have been collecting it for over 50 years.

37,941 is the number of songs in my 4E Songs database

2,330 is the number of CDs in my collection: pop, rock, R&B, soul, folk, country, show tunes and more

6,125 is the number of classical musical compositions on CD or in digital download

1,323 is the number of individual classical CDs (or multi-disc sets)

18,635, the number of individual tracks in my laptop's iTunes library

94.78 = the Gigabytes that music occupies.

And a bonus number: 161 downloaded CDs that exist only electronically

Too much music? Too anal?

Get outta here!

It all started simply enough: once I had, say, 100 CDs it wasn’t always easy to find a particular song I wanted to hear. This was, of course, in the days before downloads: all my music existed on physical CDs. If I wanted to hear a Rolling Stones tune that was easy: I just headed for the R’s and found the disc I wanted. (I leave for another day the debate on whether the Stones should be filed under "S".) But what if I wanted to hear Puddin’ n’ Tain by the Alley Cats? I didn’t have any Alley Cats CDs; it was on a compilation CD somewhere, but which one?

A database was the answer. Using Q&A, a now defunct software program, I created a simple dbase to keep track of song, artist and disc. In the years since 1986 I bought dozens of compilation CDs – discs with several different artists – and manually entered hundreds of song titles. I only did compilation CDs because, again, it was easy to find a Rolling Stones song, or a Beatles tune.

The collection grew and grew. I now have over 550 compilation CDs. Imagine what it would be like trying to find one particular song.

Then, when iTunes was released, suddenly it became much easier to enter music titles into my database, now running on FileMaker Pro. Just pop a disc into my computer and there’s all the info I need, right on the screen. Copy to Excel, import to FileMaker – no typing required.

So what did I do? Well, the only thing any self-resecting Virgo would do: I went back and cataloged all those one-artist discs. At the time I did that, there were thousands. Took quite a while, but, when finished, it was beautiful. ALL our music, classical too, brilliantly organized in computer files.

And the things you can learn by poking around those files:

I have 354 songs with the word blue in the title; another 358 with blues -- only 93 with red, 70 green and 26 yellow.

I have 27 Beatles titles (40 total discs), 11 Stones titles. Below is the list of artists who score more than 10 discs in my collection. Note that, tied with the Beatles, is Steve Forbert, an artist who had only one hit song (in 1980) but has always been a favorite of mine.

Various  (553)

Original Cast  (99)

Soundtrack  (78)

The Beatles (27)

Steve Forbert (27)

Bob Dylan (24)

Ella Fitzgerald  (19)

Barbra Streisand (15)

Peter, Paul & Mary (14)

Rod Stewart (14)

Ray Charles (13)

Frank Sinatra (13)

The Who (13)

Elton John (12)

Alan Parsons Project (12)

Otis Redding (12)

Dire Straits (11)

Rolling Stones (11)

Simon & Garfunkel (11)

Fascinating stuff, right?

Whaddayamean, no?!

Oh, and you can click here to listen to Steve Forbert’s one radio hit.