Not only has the Streaming Age eliminated our ability to give albums and CDs as gifts, but we are now living in a world without mix tapes. Those treasures of our youth are collateral damage of the cassette’s obsolescence (my son thinks my dual cassette player is a Star Wars prop). It's not clear to me how “kids today” can subliminally express to their crushes the depth of their feelings without mix tapes, but I suppose they’ll figure something out.
This week’s Playlist features songs from the embarrassingly sappy “Matt-in-Mourning” mix tape I made for my now-wife when she went to Europe for a summer during college. The tape came with pages of handwritten liner notes discussing the shattering significance of each track. My wife assures me the liner notes are “in the basement somewhere” but, frankly, I'm afraid to retrieve them since I'd likely be horrified by their sappiness. Plus, the basement scares me.
A portion of this playlist is available at 8tracks. The tracks with an asterisk never made it into my digital collection and so couldn’t be uploaded (mercifully so in the case of the John Waite track).
1. “Sara” by Bob Dylan
2. “Never Going Back Again” by Fleetwood Mac
3. “They Love Each Other” by the Grateful Dead
4. “Moonshadow” by Cat Stevens
5. “Tracks of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson*
6. “Free Fallin'” by Tom Petty
7. “Melissa” by the Allman Brothers Band
8. “Up To Me” by Bob Dylan
9. “Missing You” by John Waite*
10. “Moonlight Mile” by the Rolling Stones
11. “Please Don’t Make Me Cry” by UB40*
12. “Long As I Can See The Light” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
13. “Roll Um Easy” by Little Feat
14. “Cat’s In The Cradle” by Harry Chapin*
15. “Sweetest Thing” by U2
16. “Help Me Through The Night” by Joe Walsh
17. “Looks Like Rain” by the Grateful Dead
18. “Sweet Jane” by the Velvet Underground
19. “Gypsy” by Suzanne Vega
20. “Drive All Night” by Bruce Springsteen
21. “Valentine’s Day” by Bruce Springsteen
[Note: I had to jettison Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” which led off Side 2, since under 8track’s licensing arrangements, you can only include up to two tracks by the same artist in any one playlist. “Sara” and “Up To Me” made the cut.]