the death of the mix tape...

i love mix tapes. and i still have an extensive collection of mix tapes i have received and made for others. although i have continued to do this with cds (and admit, it is waaay easier to make a cd than a tape)...i always felt it was just not the same.

i used to make very special mix tapes for a friend of mine, (with a capital) C with whom i was enamored. i would spend days deciding on the songs to put on the tape. i would make a list, then rearrange the songs until they were perfect. (just like john cusack in high fidelity). i would sit and record each song, listen to it all the way through (to get the full feel of the flow of the music) and made sure there weren't any breaks in between songs that were too long or too short. each tape was wrapped in a special collage of magazine cut outs or old pictures. C and i still talk. and he still has my tapes. i know that he knows there was more than songs on those tapes. he took one on the AT when he hiked it and drove across the country with another one. i have a copy of one of these tapes. it is so old you can barely hear it and some of the music i really do not like listening to anymore...but i love that mix tape because i made it for him.


i have accepted cds. they open a new world. now i can transfer ANYthing i like...old songs, new songs, spoken word, whatev. i can shuffle and repeat with ease. i can make more cds for more people...which takes away a bit of the glory (for me) because i have a lot of the same music on multiple cds.


i just found an old cd i made for another friend c who was moving to california many years ago. it is a fun cd filled with random compilations...check it out...



1- the rolling stones~loving cup
2- bill withers~use me
3- blur~on the way to the club
4- pat benatar~love is a battlefield
5- the cure~love song
6- elton john~don't go breaking my heart
7- madonna~sorry
8- jon secada~just another day
9- pearl jam~elderly woman behind the counter in a small town
10- van morrison~into the mystic
11- yello~oh yeah
12- tina turner~what's love got to do with it?
13- elton john~i guess that's why they call it the blues
14- bill withers~ain't no sunshine
15- jeff buckley~last goodbye
16- rascal flatts~god blessed the lonely road


i imagined him driving across the country listening to this cd, singing at the top of his lungs, remembering past love and love to come...embarking on his new life with confidence and courage...(he was a very spiritual individual that revamped my inner smooshiness)...the months following this mix cd i broke up with my live-in bf and broke away from a family i cared deeply for, including a little girl i loved very much. in retrospect, i am pretty certain i made this cd for myself: masking its purpose through c and his journey west.


i found it last night. and i plan on keeping it on repeat all day today. even though it wasn't made in the same physically painstaking process as the previous mix tapes...its arrangement and intent are the same....i owe a lot to this cd. i love it because although i did not know it at the time, i made it for me.