I’ve always lived my life to a soundtrack of sorts. Ever since the technology became available, I’ve been making mix tapes…and then mix CDs. In the early days, I would wait for a song to come on the radio and then frantically hit the ‘record’ button on my boombox, hoping to catch the first notes of the song without getting the last notes of the previous song. Thankfully, it’s evolved to simply dragging and dropping the perfect song into the desired playlist on the left side of my iTunes. But the sentiment remains the same…those cassettes and CDs have become a catalog of those years and the emotions held within them.
Though I haven’t owned a tape player in a very long time, I still have most of my mix tapes, sitting like time capsules waiting to be opened. My CDs fill up three large binders, blank silver discs scrawled with my handwriting; they have titles like “Back to WB” or “Listen to Me!” or “For Driving Through Kansas.” My favorite part about these nondescript titles is that when I pop in that CD and the sound starts to fill the car or the living room, I am immediately transported back to, say, my first year in grad school. Each song that begins to play is another clue to the events that occurred in that time.
Chances are that if you were a boy I had a crush on between the years of middle school and college, I made you a mix tape….but it was never for your ears. It was filled with professions of love from singers with more courage than I would ever have. If you’ve been my friend for a while, I have probably made you a mix CD. It might have been filled with upbeat running songs, or my favorite female singers, or perhaps just my favorite songs at that very moment.
Just last night, I promised a friend a copy of a mix CD I made called “Stronger.” It’s….well, it’s a break-up CD. I’ve made a few copies. The title of the CD comes from a Kelly Clarkson song (you know, the bed feels warmer sleeping here alone) and the songs are all upbeat and easy to belt out while dancing around the living room. There’s Katy Perry singing about a part of me that you’ll never, ever take away from me. LaRoux promises that next time I’ll be bulletproof. P!nk says that I’m still a rock star and I don’t need you.
But break-ups aren’t all Kelly Clarkson and dancing around the living room. I mailed the “Stronger” CD to a friend last week who is having a tough time in her relationship. But I also mailed her a CD I called “Cath…”. It’s filled with songs about loss, about ambivalence, about not knowing how to leave. The title is from my favorite Death Cab for Cutie song (Cath, it seems that you lived in someone else’s dreams). There’s a song by Semisonic about a girl going to the movies and not coming back and how the boy is a fool for not going to find her. Mat Kearney sings that nothing worth anything ever goes down easy; John Hiatt says Adios to California, Patty Griffin talks about Letting Him Fly.
In the package to my friend, I included a note with the CDs. I told her I cried to “Cath…” for months before I could dance to “Stronger” and I still listen to both. In sharing these songs, though I didn’t write the words, I’m sharing feelings. And that’s the amazing thing about music—the fact that a complete stranger can capture an emotion so personal, yet so universal, that we can connect through those notes. It will leave me running for the ‘record’ button and creating new playlists for years and years to come.