Something stopped me though. I felt that if I threw the notebook away, it would have been a rejection of a part of me. Sure, that aspect of me is long gone but it felt wrong and I wasn't ready to let it go. At least not yet. Well, months later and I am still organizing my bookshelf and I found that old notebook of poetry again.
The notebook has more than just poetry, it has thousands of doodles, notes, script ideas for my summer film projects, and to-do lists, etc. To my delight I discovered an old mix tape track-list that I had made for my girlfriend Marie in the summer of 1997. We had gotten together in May of 1997 and it was the first time I had experienced love. I was head over heels and having the time of my life. So, what's a guy in the 90's supposed to do for the girl he loves? Yep, make a mix-tape.
This was one of my first experiments in making a mix-tape. I might have made one for Mikey but it was all so long ago, it's hard to remember. I would later become an expert at pacing my track list and adding surprising or funny content to add to the listener's experience.
Here's a clip from High Fidelity about the rules of making a mix tape, also I wanted to include it because it's a great movie.
Before we get to the track list, I have to set up a little more of my background.
First, I was pretty new to rock music in general. All the time in high school I should have been discovering rock history and listening to the Beatles and Pink Floyd I spent listening to awful country music and being generally un-musical. So, my knowledge base of rock music was shallow to say the least. I was into "alternative" but it was mainstream alternative. I simply wasn't aware of the depth and richness in alternative, punk, indie, you name it, etc. If this had been two years later (after being a college radio DJ) my track listing would be much more expansive and include some curve balls.
Also, Marie wasn't into rock music either, so I wasn't going to go too crazy here. I remember thinking it was going to be basic and straight forward. I spent hours coming up with the track list. Looking at the track list today it's hard to see where I was going with this. Was it an introduction to stuff I liked and hoped she would like? Was I sending her any messages? I'm not even sure I knew at the time. Anyhoo, here's the track list with my additional content.
1. "Dill Pickle Intro"
2. Smashing Pumpkins - "Today"
3. Beck - "Hot Wax"
4. "Talk Intro"
5. Weezer - "No Other One"
6. Bush - "Comedown"
7. "Helicopter intro" - Nirvana - "Lithium"
8. Dean Martin - "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You"
9. "DJ Speak"
10. Foo Fighters - "Big Me"
11. James Taylor - "You've Got A Friend"
12. Blur - "Song 2"
13. "Rocket Intro" - Rentals - "Friends of P"
14. Smashing Pumpkins - "Galapagos"
15. "Yoda Scene"
16. Pearl Jam - "Better Man"
I have to say this track list is full of rookie mistakes. There is no overall theme and the selections are haphazard (James Taylor to "Song 2"?) I also hate the fact that Bush is on this list...why did I include Bush? I also am perplexed as to why I didn't end with "Galapagos" as it's a love song and it would have been better than the oddly placed "Better Man".
I have no idea what the "Dill Pickle" intro is nor what I talked about at tracks 4 and 9. Maybe "Dill Pickle" was an inside joke but the world will never know.
I used an old pair of earphones as my microphone. I remember it sounding better than you might expect. I thought the fact that I had discovered how to record my voice on a standard stereo pretty awesome. To achieve my sound effect introductions (I overlapped sound effects over the beginning of tracks 7 and 13), I would run the sound effects CD on a second CD player while holding the mic up the speakers as I recorded the music from the actual attached CD player. It was creative and I think it gave the mix tape a feeling "what will he come up with next"? I believe the "Yoda Scene" on track 15 was the whole "There is no try" speech from Empire, although Marie probably had no idea where that was from and why this character was speaking in such a weird voice.
I'm not sure if this was one side or maybe just a sixty minute tape. I thought about adding up the times but I don't care all that much. I remember spending hours on the creation of my mix tapes. I would try to squeeze the perfect fit of songs so that each side was balanced and the listener wasn't left with 45 seconds of silence before the end of one of the sides. It really is a lost art form.
My wife had a little fun at my expense as I told her the topic of this blog. I was lamenting the loss of the mix tape and she laughed and said, "I wouldn't say it's sad, people are still sharing music".
"Yeah, but not like I did it!"
Of course she replied, "Everything has a purpose for you". And that's true enough. As the years went by my mix tapes would morph into mix CD's but the same effort was there, including snippets from TV or movies, adding vocal tracks to introduce songs or share something crazy or funny. It was a way of sharing who I was, whether it was my love interest at the time or just a friend. It was also a lot of fun.
I suppose you could put together a YouTube playlist but it just wouldn't be the same for me.
I have a warm memory of how I delivered this tape to Marie. It was one of those wonderful youthful summer days, when there wasn't much to do. I had finished the tape that afternoon and I just couldn't wait to give it to her. She was working at a local diner and I drove down to see her and give her the tape. I remember it was early evening and the sun was just starting it's descent as I drove to the diner. I was wearing my Kurt Cobain shirt and she said she liked it, although I think she was just being nice. I gave her the tape and sat on the bar stool for awhile, watching her work and making small talk, as time allowed.
I went home probably listening to one of the many mix tapes I put together for myself. There might not be very many mix tapes any more, but at least they're missed.
I found another track list - so, here's another blog post on another mix-tape!
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