Over time, I seem to have settled into a fairly moronic metric when it comes to music: if I can remember anything about it after playing it, and if I have any desire to hear it again, then it must be good. All the other stuff - interpreting, contextualizing, speculating, poeticizing etc - that goes into writing about music is a separate stage from that crude initial assessment, and as much as all of that enriches and expands the enjoyment, it can never override the basic thoughtless reaction. You can't argue yourself into ecstasy.  This playlist is a bunch of pieces I have played over and over and over, whether it's a recent discovery (as with the Morricone theme, encountered a few months ago when watching A Fistful of Dynamite)  or something beloved from the past that somehow got mislaid along the way, you and it fell out of touch for decades, but then suddenly it's back in your life (as with "My Old Man" and Ian Dury generally). Most of these songs and tracks are things I've never had the opportunity to write about - except maybe a few tossed-off thoughts on a blog accompanying a YouTube clip. There's no real through-line to this motley selection, except that they are all bits of music I became totally fixated on - music that demanded, that still demands, to be played again and again. It's a wondrous sensation, and you can't count on a regular supply of it, so when that happens I've learned to go with it.

Herb Sunday mix here