because, HELLO, playlists!

Remember mix tapes?  You know what I'm talking about.  Back in the day my love of mix tapes started with ones I'd make for myself.  I couldn't afford to purchase all the songs I wanted, but I sure could tape them off the radio.  Of course, this required a certain skill set.  First, you had to be on standby, listening for the slightest hint that a song you wanted might be getting ready to play on the radio.  You better make sure you've got the tape cued up and ready to go.  And DJs were tasked with filling time during the song's intro, so you had to time it just right to hit the record button after they stopped talking but before the singing started.  But man, those old radio mix tapes of mine were gold!  Where else can you get cheesy songs like "I'm Too Sexy" and "Because I Love You (The Postman Song)" on the same tape?

Of course, eventually I graduated to mix CDs, only instead of making my own other people would make them for me.  The best was when a guy made you a mix CD.  There's no better way to woo a girl than to give her a collection of romantic songs on a CD.  (Well, I can think of one way, but radio stations don't take requests and dedications anymore, do they?  Because when my first boyfriend called in one for me I literally swooned.  And then all my friends called to make sure I'd heard it.  But that's junior high for you.)  Burning mix CDs for people was so much easier than trying to get the perfect radio edit on tape.  Granted, you needed to own the song, but once it was loaded on your computer you could pull the songs you wanted, put them in a halfway decent order, and then burn, baby, burn.

Back in my mix CD burning days (oh, about 15 years ago) I had a friend who LOVED making mix CDs for people.  If you were lucky enough to have him hook you up you didn't just get one CD, no, you got a set!  And y'all, he was the mix CD master!  I spent months listening to his CDs while I was on road trips, working around the house, etc.  You name a music listening scenario and I was probably listening to one of his mixes.  But then life happened, and by that I mean marriages happened, and while we stayed loosely connected (thank you, social media) we really weren't in touch.  I certainly wasn't getting any new mix CDs from him and I pitched out the old ones (all but one apparently - I found it the other week) because I wasn't sure how to explain them to John.  "Oh, yeah, this guy used to make me mix CDs and I've kept them all this time because they're just THAT good" didn't seem like a great explanation.

But now it's 2020.  And life has brought us to different points on our journeys.  And there's a pandemic, so what else were we going to do but renew our friendship?  That's what you do during a pandemic, right?  You contact people from your past.  And technology has progressed to the point that you don't even have to burn a CD anymore, because, HELLO, playlists!  So over the last month I've received 6 playlists, each with 50 songs a piece.  That's 300 songs, y'all!  I've heard tell of another playlist ready to be shared with me shortly.  Some have clear themes ("it has a beat and you can dance to it" was my request, "mushy" was his choice), some don't.  But each is deliciously well crafted.  Because guess what this dance teacher loves?  Music.  All music (well, almost - I'm not doing country pop).  Old music.  New music.  Quirky music.  It doesn't matter, I love it.  And these playlists have a good blend of things I already know and love with things I didn't know before but still love.

A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley kicked off the first one (beware of the f bomb mid song if that's an issue for you).  This song grabbed me right away.  It just seemed to speak to where I am in life right now.  Rock & Roll Queen by The Subways was a blast from the past - he'd designated it as my theme song when he made those original mix CDs all those years ago.  And only a true master could put Sour Times by Portishead in the same mix as O-o-h Child by The Five Stairsteps.  That Man by Caro Emerald makes me want to tap dance while Rump Shaker by Wreckx-N-Effect makes me think of prom.  And I think Frente's cover of Bizarre Love Triangle may be my new favorite cover (and that's saying a lot, because this girl loves some covers lately).

All that said, I feel like there are certain songs that I should warn him about.  They're my John songs, and there are times when I want to listen to them, but I get to choose those times.  They're all tied to specific memories, because that's what songs do - they tie stories to emotions so that when you hear them you're thrust back into that memory.  Some John songs (yes, I have a playlist just of his songs) are gentle reminders, but some are ones to steer clear of.  Here goes (in no particular order):

• Air That I Breathe covered by The Mavericks - While we were dating for those first 11 months (or at least that's what I called it - John said we weren't dating because we were several states apart and not exactly going out on dates, so I caved and said we could refer to it as "when we were talking on the phone for hours every day") John introduced me to The Mavericks and by extension Raul Malo.  I had always loved the original version of this song, but their cover has all the feels.  I'm making peace with this song now, but for a while I couldn't listen to it without crying.  Now I just listen and think it's beautiful.
• Hanging by a Thread by Nickel Creek - This one still feels like a sucker punch.  When it plays there are tears.  The chorus says with you here baby I am strong no sign of weakness... with you gone baby I am hanging by a thread.  I've always loved this song and it's on one my all time favorite albums, but in my head this song became John's song during those first 11 months when we really were so far apart.  After he died it became all too true.  Many days I was (and occasionally still am) hanging by a thread.
• Crying by Roy Orbison - John loved Roy Orbison.  I loved this song.  It hits too close to home now.  
• Any song off the first side of George Michael's Faith album - Stop reading now and skip to the next song if you've got your head in the sand and want to pretend I'm still a virgin even though I was married for 9 years.  Still here?  Ok, you've been warned.  On one of the Christmases that John and I spent visiting his family we spent some time in the bedroom with the door locked and the beginning of this album playing while we were being, shall we say, intimate.  Yeah.  So those first several songs take me back to that.  Unless you want me reminiscing about having hot Christmas sex with my late husband you probably don't want to play the beginning of that album.
• Love on the Rocks by Neil Diamond - This one is so random.  No, our love was not on the rocks and no, I'm not telling you any lies or singing the blues.  But in those last few months before John died we did a lot of lying in bed together and watching movies.  He was appalled that I'd never seen The Jazz Singer so one Sunday afternoon we watched it together.  What we realized was that this tune gets stuck in your head but not so much the words; however, we were really good at making up other words that fit whatever scenario we found ourselves in at a given time.  Think about it:  "Writing a blog.  It's about playlists.  I will discuss... what's a hit and a miss."  Needless to say this continued for weeks, weeks I tell you!  
• (They Long to Be) Close to You by The Carpenters - This one's a double whammy ("no whammies!  no whammies!") because my mom was a big Carpenters fan.  Seriously, if Becca and I heard The Carpenters or Three Dog Night start up we knew it was housework time - get the vacuum and the duster!  But apparently John's mother used to sing it to him when he was a little boy.  Once he told me that my brain tied it to a picture I've seen of her holding Baby John.  And that means this song is forever off limits for anyone else.  I mean, it ties my dead husband, his dead mother, and my dead mother all together.  Yeah.  
  
• All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You by Heart - This song is so catchy, but the lyrics are absolutely ridiculous.  She picks up a guy for a one night stand because she can't get pregnant by her man, gets pregnant with the one night stand's baby, and then he sees her later with the kid.  The worst part?  "I told him I am the flower, you are the seed, we walked in the garden, we planted a tree."  Seriously?  I'm guessing someone failed high school biology, because this is not how trees comes to be.  All of that said, John and I loved to make fun of this song (we may have subjected poor unsuspecting Juan to this experience on a road trip once), and John especially loved it when I'd belt out the "please, please understand" portion of the song.  I can laugh with you now about this song, but it will still make me think of John (and poor Juan looking at us like we were crazy).  
• Wicked Game by Chris Isaak - John was a huge Chris Isaak fan, as evidenced by the massive amount of Chris Isaak CDs I found the other week when I was going through all of our CDs (seriously, I didn't know the man had released so many CDs).  We watched many an episode of the Chris Isaak show.  But this song, with it's haunting chorus?  This song is H-O-T.  Which makes it a shame that, at least for now, it makes me think of my late husband.  
• Loving You by The Mavericks - Yep, we're back to The Mavericks.  But this song?  This is our song.  On his first trip here we spent a good chunk of time in the used CD store (they don't have those anymore, in case you're wondering) and he bought me this album.  We got in the car and this was the first song he played for me.  We played it at our reception.  John was not big on dancing, but he'd get up and slow dance to this one with me when it came on.  It's one of the songs I played for him in that last hour before he left this earth.  Don't touch this song.
• Right Here Waiting by Richard Marx.  Not because it's romantic, but because John thought it was a ridiculous song and loved to make fun of it.  It seems that one of his cousins asked John (somewhat at the last minute) to come be in his wedding.  At said wedding a soloist played this song on the handbells.  You read that right.  Have you seen a handbell solo?  They're either really cool or really awful.  This one was awful.  John told this story so many times that all he had to do was hum the beginning of the melody and I'd bust out laughing.  So if you're playing it to try to be romantic it won't have the desired effect.
• This Life, the intro from Sons of Anarchy - John loved this show.  LOVED THIS SHOW.  For several years this song was his ringtone on my phone.  So when I hear it I still have a moment when I think he's calling me.  Ugh.
• More Today than Yesterday by The Spiral Starecase - If you've read some of my other blog posts you've heard me mention this story before.  Like many couples John and I had our own little "i love you" ritual.  One of us would look at the other and say, "I love you more today than yesterday."  The other would answer, "but not as much as tomorrow."  It's cheesy, but it was sweet.  So stay away from that song, unless you want me to wistfully lose focus for a bit.  Yeah.

So there you go.  If anybody else wants to send me playlists, I'm game!  Just make sure you avoid certain songs.