Love in the Age of iPods

Please note: There will be no podcast version of this hour, but you can listen to the streaming audio by clicking the button above.

It’s done that for eons — in caves, under bandstands, off LPs on the stereo, off the Walkman, the boom box, and now the iPod.

But the iPod goes everywhere, with all our music, if we like, all the time. The permanent, omnipresent soundtrack.

Novelist Arthur Phillips put American hipsters in Eastern Europe at the heart of his first big book, "Prague." Now he’s channeling the iPod era. This hour, On Point: Arthur Phillips on music, his new fiction, and the age of iPod.

You can join the conversation. Is your soundtrack always with you now, on your earbuds? Does that change the way we live? The way we live with music? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guests:

Arthur Phillips joins us from New York. He's the author of the previous novels "Prague," "The Egyptologist," and "Angelica." He plays jazz saxophone and is a five-time Jeopardy! champion. His new novel is "The Song is You." Read an excerpt at his website.

Joining us in our studio is Tim Riley, a music critic for NPR, editor of the Riley Rock Index, and author of "Fever: How Rock Transformed Gender" and "Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary."

In this hour, we played excerpts from a number of songs referenced by Arthur Phillips in his novel.  Here's the playlist, in the order we played them:
1. “I Cover the Waterfront” - Billie Holiday
2. “Waters of March (Aguas de Marco)” - Antonio Carlos Jobim, Elis Regina
3. “April in Paris” - Ella Fitzgerald
4. “The Boy With the Thorn in His Side” - The Smiths
5. “Monkey Man” - The Rolling Stones
6. “Flathead” - The Fratellis
7. “A Little Less Conversation” - Elvis Presley
8. “Not Fair” - Lily Allen
9. “Foxey Lady” - The Cure

Phillips himself has created an iTunes playlist for "The Song Is You," which includes several of these songs and a few others.