30 Days of Truth: Day 24

Today I'm supposed to make a playlist for someone, and explain why I chose all the songs.

I used to make mix tapes all the time -- later, they evolved into mix CDS. And I still occasionally do it -- just not for other people: I make them for me.

Occasionally, my mixes have a theme. Sometimes they just have a mood. Most often, they are just an attempt to capture a moment in time, musically. Sometimes, then, the moment in time or the mood or the theme intersects with a particular relationship, and later, when listening to the CD, I realize that it's all about that relationship -- good, bad, or indifferent.

This, my dears, is why I liked High Fidelity so much.

Some years ago, I had a boyfriend who made me mix CDs: they were always attempts at a theme, and were, by and large, intended to be funny. I tried to make him a mix once. It had no focus, no unifying theme, no real thought. It was merely a collection of songs that I thought he would like. I wish I could take it back, for many reasons.

Last year, I was dating someone who asked me to make him a CD with a collection of things that he might like or that would expand his musical knowledge. I started working on it, but then I decided it (he?) really wasn't worth the effort. After all, a mix CD is a gesture of love.

So, reconciling all that with the mission at hand, I'm going to post a playlist for all my writer and blogger friends, about the things we love: writing and reading and books and authors. Because you're awesome.

1. Moxy Fruvous: My Baby Loves A Bunch of Authors (Speaks for itself.)
2. 10,000 Maniacs: Hey Jack Kerouac (Author, best known for On the Road.)
3. Ryan Adams: Sylvia Plath (Poet and author of The Bell Jar. Sadly, best known for committing suicide by putting her head in the oven.)
4. Vampire Weekend: Oxford Comma (A song about punctuation, at least in title.)
5. Elvis Costello: Every Day I Write The Book (Speaks for itself.)
6. Bruce Springsteen: Dancing in the Dark ("I'm sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book.")
7. The Beatles: Paperback Writer (Speaks for itself.)
8. U2: Stranger in a Strange Land (Title of a novel by Robert A. Heinlein.)
9. Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit (Based on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.)
10. Guns 'N Roses: November Rain (Allegedly based on the short story Without You by Del James.)
11. Metallica: One (Based on Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.)
12. Led Zeppelin: Ramble On (Filled with references to J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy.)
13. The Police: Tea in the Sahara (References to The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles.)
14. The Cure: Killing an Arab (Based on The Stranger by Albert Camus.)

Yesterday: Day 23 → Something you wish you had done in your life.
Tomorrow: Day 25 → The reason you believe you’re still alive today.