Worldly music for the sake of my sanity

My wife and mother-in-law will be driving behind me in the car this Thursday as I drive the moving truck (with our other car in tow). My fear is they'll want to pull over every 30 minutes. We'll be driving 99 to I-10 out in the middle of rural California for hundreds of miles. It's a 14-hour drive through flat agricultural fields and flatter desert. We leave at 7 p.m. and figure to pull up at my parents' house in Arizona around 10 a.m. Friday.

Dangit, I want to make some time.

Now, my wife and mother-in-law are Christians, but I need them to keep their eyes open and focused on driving. Worship music is not going to accomplish that for them.

So I've spent about four hours today putting together a compilation of music spanning some of the bigger hits of their "glory days" -- probably from a few recordings their pastors pushed them to crush and burn in one of those "get Satan out of your ears" festivals every youth group has. Now, I am in now way endorsing spending a lot of time on music that isn't God-worthy, but most of this stuff is plain silly, and any enjoyment comes from remembering the goofiness of youth and days unencumbered with the weight of the world. It's sentimental stuff to these girls.

This compilation has four volumes, a mix of silly, sappy, brain-dead hits from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I call the compilation "Matt's Pizza Shop," imagining what might be playing in the pizza shop of my youth as I racked up millions of points on Asteroids. You be the judge ... I hope I'm keeping their foot on the pedal and not sending them onto the Highway to Hell:

Matt's Pizza Shop, Vol. 1
1. Foreplay/Long Time, Boston
2. Always Something There To Remind Me, Naked Eyes
3. Baby Got Back, Sir Mix-A-Lot
4. Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Elton John and Kiki Dee
5. Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Jet
6. Don't Stop Believing, Journey
7. Carry On My Wayward Son, Kansas
8. Don't Come Around Here No More, Tom Petty
9. 867-5309, Tommy Tutone
10. Blinded By The Light, ELO
11. Cruel Summer, Bananarama

Matt's Pizza Shop, Vol. 2
1. It's Tricky, Run DMC
2. I Need You Tonight, INXS
3. Free Falling, Tom Petty
4. I Still Haven't Found ..., U2
5. Kiss, Prince
6. Me, Myself, and I, De La Soul
7. More Than A Feeling, Boston
8. New Sensation, INXS
9. Pyromania, Def Leppard
10. Rock The Casbah, The Clash
11. Blitzkrieg Bop, The Ramones
12. Free Bird, Lynard Skynard

Matt's Pizza Shop, Vol. 3
1. Should I Stay Or Should I Go, The Clash
2. She Moves In Mysterious Ways, U2
3. Sweet Dreams, Eurythmics
4. Sweet Emotion, Aerosmith
5. What I Am, Edie Brickel and the New Bohemians
6. Tainted Love, Soft Cell
7. The Hook, Blues Traveler
8. Walk This Way, Run DMC and Aerosmith
9. Wanne Be Sedated, The Ramones
10. What I Like About You, The Romantics
11. Where the Streets Have No Name, U2
12. Rock You Like Hurricane, Scorpions

Matt's Pizza Shop, Vol. 4
1. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces, Ben Folds Five
2. Run Around, Blues Traveler
3. She Blinded Me With Science, Thomas Dolby
4. Electric Avenue, Eddy Grant
5. Seperate Ways, Journey
6. Every Little Thing, The Police
7. Ebay, Weird Al Yankovic
8. Faithfully, Journey
9. Every Breath You Take, The Police
10. Fields of Gold, Sting
11. Red Red Wine, UB40