There probably isn’t a cultural history of the importance of mixtapes, and this isn’t going to be one, except perhaps as an homage to the best of the genre I was ever sent, and a testament to how stupid men are.
Listening Notes:
It’s basically a playlist.
The Story
They lay in the bed, tousled, breathless, entangled. She stroked his arm and he enjoyed it, and they kissed and played; it was a magical way to be.
She sighed.
“It’s too late to go again, isn’t it?”
He laughed.
“At my age, after mid-afternoon can be.”
She smiled and kissed his cheek.
“Then tell me about the mixtapes.”
“The mixtapes?”
“Yeah, the mixtapes. You mentioned them a lot before.”
“Ah, mixtapes. The bane and basis of every teenage romance, well, within my group of friends anyway. A whole argot, a whole language, they were fucking insane. And they date me so badly. Does it help if I tell you that I made more mix CDs than mix tapes?”
“Not really. If you had told me you made playlists, that would make sense.”
“Yeah, that’s true. But I think playlists are too easy. You guys have it so much easier than we did. We had to get the original song on CD or on another tape, and we had to time the recording, actually commit it to tape, then listen to the damned thing to make sure it all hung together. And there was an order, a particular method to laying out the songs.”
“On tapes. That must have been a hassle.”
“It was, except tapes were everywhere. A quid could buy you four. They came in C-90 and C-60, and if you were a total knob you could use half speed and such to extend the length. If you had any common sense, you used a C60, which kept things simple.”
“And then?”
“And then you found a way of getting it to her. You’d find a girl who knew her in school. Always a year younger; you had to be making them special. But you had to be very careful, to make sure your dirty secret song or your most demonstrative song wasn’t at the start of the tape, because whilst tapes were ubiquitous, so were Walkmans. Anyone could put the tape in and listen to it. You didn’t need to send any other message – the songs, and the order they were in, was the message.”
She giggled.
“What message did you like to send?”
“I was usually a recipient rather than a sender, because, as you may have noticed, I am ridiculously attractive.”
She kissed him and ran her hand up his chest.
“I noticed.”
He shook his head and put his hand on hers; they clasped.
“You’re fucking blind. Anyway. I once got this tape with mostly old stuff on it and I didn’t really pay attention to the order and the content, because I was a rookie. She wasn’t.”
“What was on it?”
“Well, it started off with some Joan Baez song ‘Here’s to you’, which meant nothing to me, but holy shit, I was in for an emotional kicking.”
“How so?”
He lay and looked at the ceiling.
“‘Here’s To You’ is a reproach. It’s telling you off for being a tease, or for missing something obvious you should have seen at a party or on the train or fucking written in the stars. It was also a warning. I needed to pay attention. Also, it’s fucking Joan Baez. Nobody puts Joan Baez on a mixtape unless they’re fucking serious about the mixtape.”
She sighed.
“I don’t know Joan Baez.”
“You’re fucking lucky,” he said. “She is an acquired taste. Unlike you.”
She rolled her eyes as he continued.
“So the next track was ‘Sex and Candy’ by Marcy Playground.”
She laughed.
“No prizes for guessing what that was about?”
“No!” He said. “It’s not about sex at all. Well, I mean, it is. But the lyrics are the thing. “Who’s that lounging in my chair? Who’s that casting devious stares in my direction?” She’s accusing you of being sneaky and kissing her friend without declaring it. So, so far, in the tape, she has warned me to to pay attention, warned me that people are saying stuff about me. And then, next song. Like a kick in the head. ‘The First Taste’ by Fiona Apple. Still gives me tingles, that song.”
She sat up in the bed and picked up her phone, opened Spotify and searched for the song.
“Don’t.” He said.
“Why not?”
“We’re not there yet,” he said.
“We’re not there yet? Honey, you had the first taste about half an hour ago.”
“You’ll hear the song when you get home. Make sure you have decent headphones. It deserves good headphones. But it’s what the song’s about. On first inspection, it’s about having sex for the first time. But if you’re a teenager, it’s about much, much more than that. It’s about virginity, about being prepared to sacrifice, et cetera, et cetera. If I’m honest, it’s about loads of stuff teenagers don’t have the first fucking clue about, but it’s terribly grown up, and very good. And it’s a fucking good song. Anyway, in this case, the brains trust decided it was about ‘you must make the endeavour’ as in, she wasn’t going to chase me, I had to chase her. Very alluring. Big gamble.”
She lay back down, draping her arm over him.
“So what was next? Two warnings and a demand. Surely it got nicer after that?
“Sorta. ‘Ex-Factor’ by Lauryn Hill. It’s a lovely song. But it’s got this line in there ‘say you’ll die for me, why won’t you live for me?’. She has the best voice. And this song, according to the Brains Trust, is all about how she thinks it could be perfect between us, and it’s just me fucking things up. This is one where the lyrics aren’t subtle and they mean what they say on the tin. This is also one where the Brains Trust breathes in deeply through their teeth and realises I’m in a lot of trouble. But what this also means is that the Brains Trust has an insight into what another girl thinks of me, and that’s polluting the pool.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, a devious guy could make up a mixtape and pretend he’d been sent it anonymously. That would be fucking wild. And it would probably work. They would think you were mysterious and exciting.”
“Did you do that?”
“No, but it could have been done is all I’m saying.”
“Okay. What was next on the tape?”
“Genius of Love, Tom Tom Club. Fucking class. She had good taste in music. There were always a few songs to relieve the relentless weight of the meaning. This was a good choice.”
“I don’t know any of these songs. It’s infuriating!”
“It’s not really. You have a choice to listen to them and understand what yearning was like for socially awkward, sexually backward teenagers, or not to bother. But I reckon you’d like the next song. ‘A Case of You’ by Joni Mitchell. Lyrically, it’s gorgeous, and it’s ABSOLUTELY full of yearning. Yearning, yearning, yearning. Once someone sent you that in a mixtape, you knew that they had some imagined pain that you had given them, and that they had already determined to forgive you for. It was more efficient that way. People got on with being upset with one another from a distance, and then they would forgive you before you knew you’d upset them. I’d go to a house party and ask who I’d upset recently, and they would give me a rundown. It was very useful. But they’d mostly forgive me because teenage heartbreak is a drag, and I was tall enough to go to the off licence.”
“I knew I liked you for a reason.”
“Well, you still get carded at bars.”
“I do. You don’t. You’re old.”
She leaned on him and kissed his cheek, and ran her fingers through his hair.
He sighed and smiled.
“So the tape had another one track on the first side. Another Joni Mitchell song, which could have meant it meant nothing, but in this case, it was perhaps the whole point of the tape. ‘All I Want’. Much the same message, but ‘Do you want to dance with me baby’ is a simple question. Did I want to go out with her?”
“And did you?”
“Alas, no. I was an idiot. She was witty and tender and clever and lovely and smart and her friend had bright red lipstick and extreme determination. And I am a man, and men are stupid.
She nodded. “Men are stupid. Really. You need to make me a mixtape.”
“You’ll get a playlist.”
“Okay.
With this, they lay for the duration, watching the sky brighten, knowing they would be tired for the day ahead, but that at least they would have something to listen to.