“Even though you don’t love me anymore, I made you this mixed tape”

Ahhh, the mixed tape.

It’s meticulously meaningful, but ultimately tragic life was spent traveling from car to bedroom to walkman back to car, off to college, lent to roommate… only to be eventually tossed out by your new boyfriend who didn’t “appreciate” you still listening to it or abandoned for the shiny wonder that was your first CD.

Countless hours were spent in the 80’s and early 90’s tediously listening to lyrics of songs that would “say exactly the way I was feeling” to a cruel, callous, obviously black-hearted ex.

How many hours pouring over lyrics like…

When the wheel of fortune broke, you fell to me
Out of grey skies to change my misery
The vacant spot, your beating heart took its place
But now I watch smoke leave my lips and fill an empty room

For the bitterest pill is hard to swallow
The love I gave hangs in sad coloured, mocking shadows

Yeah! “Sad coloured, mocking shadows…” you tell her Paul Weller! (Oh, that rhymes!)

I still have two of my old mixed tapes. A Bob Dylan one, made by my old friend Paul. The only reason I keep it is there’s a song on it I can’t identify. The only trace of writing on it left is just “Dylan” scrawled across the top. (Dylan fan? “We met at the station, heard the mission bells ring. She said “I know what you’re thinkn'”…Any clue?)

The other? Random 80’s–Captain Sensible, Tin Tin, Ultravox, Joy Division, and for some reason only the creator understood, Olivia Newton John. Just can’t part with it.

I miss the mixed tape. Surely searching iTunes, downloading a playlist, designing the graphics for a CD label, typing out the song titles and giving it to your targeted listener doesn’t have the same effect as a mixed tape made in the dark of one’s bedroom.

Hunched over a stereo, fast forwarding past the “happy songs” to the more desired melancholy tunes, the mixer chose carefully when to press that red “record” button. Just one more thing those kids today will never have the pleasure of experiencing–like really badly acted, heavily smoke-machined, sketchy concepted (pretty sure that’s not a word) 80’s videos. Poor things.

What was my point to this? Oh, that’s right. I found these from Wishing Fish, “Mixed Tape USB Stick”. All the look and angst of a mixed tape, but the (cheating) ease of iTunes.

If you know me, there are probably a few of these in your future. Especially if you done me wrong…

Related links:
Marcy wrote today, cassettes are now hard to come by “Shopping for a dinasour.”
This website on “Art of the Mix”
Mixed tape everything on Etsy.