The iTunes music store

Although I spend a lot of time running and using iTunes I had never purchased anything on the iTunes Music Store, until yesterday.

This may seem a little odd for a number of reasons: iTunes itself is normally running 24 hours a day on my computer; in my working life I spend a lot of time writing programs that talk to iTunes; and the iTunes Music Store itself has been available where I live since 26 October 2004, well over a year now.

I’ve resisted for this long because I was worried about how much I might spend at the store. It’s just all too easy: a single click and 99 cents and a few seconds later the track is downloaded to your machine. Well, I finally gave in, but I’m going to put a cap on my spending. I’ll be buying no more than five tracks per month, and I’ll only revise that limit upwards on the basis of very careful consideration.

So what were the winning tracks? First up, Es por tí, by Grupo Mamey, which is a 2003 bachata remake of the original by Juanes (which I also purchased). The song features the breath-takingly honest and direct romantic lyrics that are a Juanes trademark:

Cada vez que me levanto y veo que a mi lado estás me siento renovado tus ojos me llevan lentamente al Sol y tu boca me habla del amor y el corazón tu piel tiene el color de un rojo atardecer y es por tí que late mi corazón y es por tí que he vuelto a hablar de amor y es por tí que brillan mis ojos hoy y es por tí que calma mi dolor

There’s something so brutally honest about the Juanes lyrics, the manner in which he lays bare his feelings and makes himself totally vulnerable which is touching. These are lyrics which can take you back in time to a period in which you had never been hurt, in which your faith in love was unshaken; it’s nice to listen to this music and at least consider that one day it might be possible to have that kind of faith again, that willingness to recognise that you might get hurt but that "vale la pena". These lyrics ring true in Spanish, "llegan al alma", but translated into English they just don’t sound right because I can’t imagine any English singer ever uttering such words.

Then there were the 2004 versions of Ven, devórame otra vez by Charlie Cruz and Lalo Rodríguez; finally I opted for Yo soy la candela by Frank River. These last three were all purchased because they are salsa numbers that I’ve heard enough times in the clubs around here that they’ve started to grow on me.