What's more exciting than writing a NEW YEAR on a check? It's like taking a shower and feeling all the dirt just wash away and emerging a new person. Actually, it's nothing like that. Not even close, but it's a good feeling nonetheless. Accuracy isn't one of my strong points. It does mean that another tax year is over and a new one has begun. All you self-employed people, keep good notes and track of your receipts. For you, life is an eternal deduction.

Musicians celebrate this chance for rebirth by doing what they do most of the time: hitting on other people's girlfriends, borrowing money off their friends and writing songs in notebooks that the world may never see or hear. Successful musicians put these songs on their albums where people like me find them and say, "Hey, this could be on my 'List of the Day.'" It's my own personal form of happiness that no one can ever take away from me.

U2--"New Year's Day": Every time I see the video with these gentlemen standing out in the snow I

Boys write songs about girls. As I was in the lab researching this, I was struck by how often geography plays a major role in the process. These days with the cost of fuel being so expensive, it's more important than ever for a boy to choose his prospective mate by proximity. Closer is better. Unless you don't like each other. Then further is better. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and helps you forget how freakin' annoying the other person actually is.

Billy Joel--"Uptown Girl": I nominated this as my least favorite Billy Joel song and now it's come back to haunt me here as well. This is one of those songs that once it gets in your head, it does not leave. It's impervious to orders. Much like its author, the inimitable Billy Joel, who has always reminded me of the drunk uncle who insists on singing at the wedding. Am I alone in this perception?

Jethro Tull--"The Girl From Ipanema": I know what you're thinking. Jethro Tull recorded a version of "The Girl From Ipanema"? Turns out

What the dead might be doing if they weren't dead....

People like to say things like "If John Lennon Were Alive Today, he would have an iPod and be recording with Moby." As if anyone could predict such a thing. Maybe he'd be opening Cinnabon franchises in the third world. You ever think of that? You never know.

But it is fun to postulate where dead rock stars would stand on important issues, whose music they would like, whose they would hate, what albums they would record in not-so-quiet desperation. It's all there for the dreaming. They can't deny they wouldn't have tried it, since they're dead!

John Lennon: Likes: Moby, for his baldness, for his advertising sense, for his vegan diet. Dislikes: Death Metal. Because as far as he's concerned, he did all that with "Cambridge, 1969" blah, blah, blah.... Best Album: Re-records his favorite Beatle and solo tunes with a third-rate crappy punk group from L.A. at Steve Albini's place in Chicago. Includes: "Nowhere Man," "Revolution 9" (thanks,

As the great philosopher-movie star-country singer-hat wearing superstar Jerry Reed once said, "When You're Hot, You're Hot." When you're in the zone, you don't question it. God just might've given us ELEVEN commandments if Moses hadn't been in such a hurry to get down the damned mountain. So here are five more predictions that you can take to the bank!

1) The music industry will be involved in a scandal that reveals that computers are now responsible for the making of most music. Yes, it will come to light that just as Milli Vanilli didn't sing on their own records, most of today's musicians don't actually play on their own records. That, in fact, much of what the listening audience is hearing is music made by MACHINES. This devastating revelation will cause listeners to become angry and confused. And cause the music industry to take a long hard look at what it's become. We're only moments away from a new musical revolution when quality groups such as the Spice Girls and Sigue Sigue