It's funny you should mention Horses. A couple of months ago, we each bought a 1g IRiver to share time with the 20g. For my (bright orange) 1g, I went through the collection and pulled essential tracks – tracks such that I could have on shuffle and listen to while walking to work or waiting for the bus or whatever and never have to shuffle past something. It's been a long process of trial and tweaking, but I think I've got it down.

One of the tracks that has ended up being part of that walkin' jukebox is, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the Land triptych (horses/land…/la mer). I don't know why I drop it on there, but I can't express the power that track has over me, the intense surge I get from it. Maybe you can relate (a quick check of the dates shows me some 30 years late arriving to this particular party).

So odd in appearance, but so very true. This became a little less true for me once I got my iPod four years ago, when I loaded what I considered to be my core library onto the iPod, and was suddenly hearing deep tracks from, say, "Sandinista" that I probably hadn't heard in 20 years, and the albums I kept hearing that I didn't need to hear (if that makes sense) so I finally took them off the iPod.

And now the iPod is primarily about new music and stuff I feel like I have to have with me at any given time, which changes and shifts. But I don't need to have "Who's Next" or "No Code" or "Horses" on the iPod, always, because I don't need to hear them.