A Mixtape Can Break Your Heart
It’s funny, the things you come across sometimes that remind you of people you once knew, of people who have gone and won’t be returning, for one reason or another.
- Sister Luck by The Black Crowes
- Killer Queen by Queen
- I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In the Ninth Ward) by Tom Waits
People don’t know about mix tapes these days, not really. What a labor of love a good one could be. Digging through every CD you’d blown your student loan money on, or every cassette that was a copy of a copy of a friend’s copy, or every album you’d found in the back bin of a record shop in a part of the city that was kind of dangerous and kind of sexy at the same time… all the time spent looking for the perfect song for the perfect mood for the perfect person.
- Pretty Girls by Joe Jackson
- Bull in the Heather by Sonic Youth
- Take This Waltz (Paris Version) by Leonard Cohen
I found this mix tape at the bottom of a box in the basement, beneath old notes from communication classes in the ‘90s, some old T-shirts from the early aughts, a few scribbles of prose on torn-out loose leaf left to yellow and gather dust. The case is cracked, but still holding. The flower stickers are still attached. The doodles are still colorful. The handwriting on the track listing is still legible.
- Easy Living by Billie Holiday
- Divorce Song by Liz Phair
- The Vampires of New York by Marcy Playground
A mix tape says as much about the person who is making it as it does about how they feel about the person they are making it for. A mix tape can tell you that someone wants very much to be your friend.
- Thirty-Three by Smashing Pumpkins
- Say Something by James
- Turn to Me by Lou Reed
A mix tape can tell you that someone wants very much to be more than just your friend.
- Possession by Sarah McLachlan
- I Couldn’t Love You More by Sade
- Fairytale of New York by The Pogues
Making a mix tape is an act of art and devotion, of hope and reaching out, that just making a playlist on a streaming platform can’t match up to. The medium here is integral to the message. The two pictures are not the same.
- Song to the Siren by This Mortal Coil
- Come Talk To Me by Peter Gabriel
- Leave it Open by Kate Bush
I can’t play this mix tape now, the one in my hand. I’m sure if I had a cassette deck, if I put it in the machine and pressed play, the reels would turn, the tape would run, and the music would still come. But I can’t play this tape today, because the amber in which the girl and boy who made and received it is thirty years too strong now, and some pieces of time and music can’t be taken out and listened to without tearing into little pieces that blow away on the wind.
- When We Two Parted By The Afghan Whigs
- Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead
- ~
I can’t play this tape again because the last track is a secret track, a track with no title. Words spoken into a microphone by a girl making a mix tape for a boy, words that can’t be found on any streaming service, words that I can’t play now even if I had a cassette player.
A mixtape can make you whole.
A mixtape can also break your heart.
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