So Long, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald

Today I finally got my last Christmas gift from Other -- $7 worth of downloaded music. He kept reminding me to put the Sopranos theme song on my list, and I finally, somewhat grudgingly did. Because I figured that I liked it but didn’t really want it. Music is a luxury, a luxury of the sort that I never buy (as opposed to yarn, beads, fabric, and books) and I figured that there’s got to be something else out there that I’ve been wanting forever (like Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels” and the Eels’ “Novocaine for the Soul,” both of which I’ve wanted to own for literally YEARS). (Oh, and "Baker’s Street.")

But I freaking love the Sopranos theme song. I have never seen an episode of it. I have seen the parody of it that The Simpsons did, and loved the mock-intro of Fat Tony and the henchmen riding around and smoking the cigar to that awesome, awesome Simpsons ripoff of the Sopranos song. It took me a few minutes to realize that I liked it so much because it is essentially the same thing as the opening of Down by Law, only with “Woke Up this Morning” where “Jockey Full of Burbon” went, and Somewhere, NJ where that beatdown Jarmusch city went. I think I’ve said this before, but the opening of Down By Law is the single greatest opening to any movie ever.