One of the many things I love about my new iPod is that buying it has forced me to burn my music collection and the process has got me listening to stuff I haven’t heard in a long time.

Tonight I ran across the 10,000 Maniacs’ fantastic second album, In My Tribe. I just absolutely love that thin guitar sound of the group.

Anyway, I had to listen to my favorite song from the collection, Verdi Cries. It is such a sad and touching song but it’s the imagry of the lyrics that I love the most–that of a man locked away in his hotel room listening to Aida, and told from the eyes of a girl who steals his pastries from his breakfast tray and who is taken away by the opera:

I draw a jackal-headed woman in the sand
sing of a lover’s fate sealed by jealous hate
then wash my hand in the sea
with just three days more I’d have just about learned the entire score to aida