iTunes? Really?

So I'm flipping through the iTunes store, as I often do, and I decide to put my name in the search engine. I had submitted a few tunes from my solo album a month or so ago. I never heard anything, so I assumed they didn't accept me. But, just for fun, I thought I'd see what happened when I put my own name into iTunes. Well, much to my surprise, there I was. Lord only knows how long it had been up there. I don't even know how to check if any units have sold. But there I was.

Its a pretty strange feeling really. I bought a couple Gladys Knight tunes last week on iTunes. I bought some Phil Collins. Before that I bought this Lady Antebellum tune that a friend of mine let me hear in her car. I've bought James Brown on iTunes. Jay-Z. Billie Holiday. John Mayer. Those guys are all supposed to be on iTunes. And then there's me.

I remember I was at a party one time and a guy came up to me and told me that I was in his iPod. It took me a second to realize what he meant. At first I thought he meant that I had somehow stolen his iPod. Then it hit me. My music is in his iPod. Why, I couldn't tell you. But it was. I knew that he knew some people who I'd given a copy of my CD to, so it made sense after I thought about it. But every time someone tells me they were just listening to my CD, I have the same reaction. How did you get it, and why were you just listening to it.

So now, years and years after I made my CD, its on iTunes. For those that don't know me, my music will be brand new. In a sense, that's kinda cool. There's the potential for a brand new audience for my music. But it just means that there will now be the possibility of true strangers, in any city I might travel to, to say, "Hey man, you're in my iPod." My response will probably always be, "Really? Why?"