Life Is a Mix Tape, Part 1

"the times you lived through, the people you shared those times with - nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. it does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. every mix tape tells a story. put them together, and they add up to the story of a life."

-rob sheffield

music is a huge part of my life and always has been. it’s no surprise, then, that many of my memories have music tied to them. i’ve decided to list some of these, and update as i think of others. also, if you happen to think of a song that reminds you of me or of something we did together, let me know! (p.s. if you’re not sure what a song sounds like, or you’re thinking, “hey! i love that song!” i’ve included a playlist at the bottom for your listening pleasure.)
8 “in your eyes” by peter gabriel: this is one of my favorite songs of all time. and it never fails to make me think – just for a second – about fedan and our obsession with the good morning vietnam soundtrack. i would go over to her house to hang out and we would listen to it nonstop and dance around like fools. and, yes, i realize this song is not actually on the soundtrack; but for whatever reason, our obsessions with peter gabriel and the gmv album are synonymous in my head.

8 “be my lover” by la bouche: we were in italy the first time we heard this song, in a discoteque. the other girls and i quickly found out that italian men come in two varieties – mediteranean god, and sleezy grease ball. we spent the evening dancing in a group, john and jim circling us at intervals to ward off said grease balls (because apparently the god-like men weren’t at our disco).

8 “everything i do (i do it for you)” by brian adams: my junior year in high school, the marching band performed music from the movie robin hood: prince of thieves. i loved the instrumental music, but we also did the popular “love theme”. this was the one piece of choreography that sucked for us in the color guard. our instructor (who is another story in and of himself) gave us difficult, dci-worthy routines, but this unfortunately didn’t continue on to the ballad, during which he decided we should do a dance sans apparatus. it was not particularly good, but what i remember most is my end position; i didn’t have an exact coordinate – i just needed to end up a few yards behind chris bouquot and off to his left. i can’t remember what i ate for lunch yesterday, but i remember a field position from 14 years ago…

8 “the hustle” and “there’s a kind of hush”: when i was little, i was encouraged to listen to any and all of my parents’ record albums. mom and dad didn’t restrict me to “kiddie music” nor did they expect themselves to live on a steady stream of trite educational songs. (also, i suspect that there wasn’t the market on kid songs that there is today.) one of the albums my mom would play fairly regularly was a “workout album.” on one side, there was a selection of six or seven songs with a perky voice calling out the dance/aerobic moves. on the other side were the same songs, sans instructions. both “the hustle” and “there’s a kind of hush” were on this album, so they make me think of dancing around in our awesome black-white-and-chrome living room in huntington with my mom.

8 “my perogative” by bobby brown: we danced to this in a jazz class… there are specific dance moves that go with “i see nothing wrong/ with spreading myself around” and “ev’rybody’s talkin / all this stuff about me”. i feel compelled to do them to this day. maybe if you’re good, i’ll record the moves and upload them…

8 “super trouper” by abba: this was my favorite abba song as a kid. we had a van for long trips, and my dad wisely installed an 8-track player with headphones next to my seat in the back. (that’s right, i said 8-track.) this way both my parents and i could listen to what we wanted. when i was four, my favorite 8-tracks were abba’s the album, a sesame street album, the beach boys’ greatest hits, and hooked on classics. my freshman year in college, i found myself in the cac’s concert theatre during a scenic design class. victor pointed to the back of the house to show us the large professional spotlights. “those are called super troupers,” he told us. “OH!” i exclaimed half a minute later. “THAT’S what they meant in the abba song!” i had always assumed (hey, i was four when i memorized the words) that it meant trouper as in someone who put up with something, like being lonely while on tour – being a trouper. victor glanced over at me, rolled his eyes, and said, “seriously? stop talking, gibson.” this would not be the first OR the last time he said this exact phrase...

8 “don’t stand so close to me” by the police, and “private eyes” by hall and oats: I had a small record player when i was young that played 45’s. these were my first two 45’s ever, and i played them over and over.

8 “satellite” by dmb: i already owned the album, so i’m not entirely sure why this reminds me of sitting around a pool table at a bar in college. i’m not even sure which bar – though i think it was probably the barn, as it was owned by a friend’s brother and we always got in for free. for whatever reason, i remember sitting with john and commenting, “oh, i like this song” as it came on. then we – and the other assorted people with us – starting discussing jam bands. unimportant, really, but i think of it every time.

8 “tootsie roll”: luckily i don’t hear this song very often, as it is a stupid, stupid song. however, it’s burned in my memory because of kenny and jason, two fellow theatre students. i don’t remember why the three of us always traveled together from the evansdale campus to downtown; i lived above the student union (stupid honors program) instead of in evansdale like every other creative arts student, but i can’t remember if jason and kenny did too, or if we had a class together. either way, the three of us often scaled the nine bajillion stairs from the bottom of the mountain, where the prt station was, to the top, where everything else lived. (and i’m not kidding about the stairs. we counted them once, and it came out to three hundred and something. and that was just to the mountainlair – there were several more flights to get up to my dorm. remind me to tell the “alice in wondershit” story at a later date.) one day, for no apparent reason, one of them burst out with the song, the other joined in, and they danced their way up the stairs as they sang about the moves. once they realized how obnoxious this was, they repeated the performance frequently. made me laugh (almost) every time.

8 “the end of the world (as we know it)” by r.e.m.: john and i are singers. we sing along with every song on the radio if we know all the words or even (or sometimes especially) if we don’t. dale, however never joins it. he enjoys the music and will bop along, but he leaves the singing to the rest of us – except on one occasion. we were driving around pittsburgh when this song came on the radio. dale then proceeded to sing every lyric of the song correctly. if you’ve heard the song, you know it contains a lot of random words and phrases sung quickly through the verses. john and i stared at dale for a verse or so and then burst out laughing; it was so out of character for him that it became hysterical. dale looked around at us and kept asking, “what? what’s so funny?”

as i think of others, i'll post them - in the meantime i leave you with an interesting mish-mash of music...

8 note: the quote at the beginning of this blog is from the book love is a mix tape by rob sheffield - a brilliant memoir of life and love by a contributing editor of rolling stone. it's lovely and sad and inspiring and funny and real, and you should go read it.