Does anybody use the word “mixtape” anymore? I Googled the term and it seems that it’s sadly no longer in vogue unless it’s being used to describe a hip-hop compilation. In my high school days, everybody was trading mix CDs, but I know those have gone the way of the dinosaur because, well, that was quite a while ago.
What I have to share today is a little personal. In the early days of our relationship, I was surprised to find out that Dallas didn’t own an mp3 player (being an iPod owner since 2005, I was absolutely floored that somebody could do as much walking on a college campus as he was without a personal soundtrack of some sort, if only to tune out everyone around him). He flat-out refused to get a smartphone until his parents insisted (yes, insisted) he was going to get one as kind of a late Christmas gift–he had been using an old phone of his mom’s that kept losing its battery door, they were all eligible to upgrade their phones, his parents had the original Samsung Galaxy phones and wanted iPhones–and he ended up with an iPhone 5.
Still, old habits die hard. He’s embraced iHeartRadio for his trips to the gym, but to my knowledge, he’s never downloaded an mp3 to put on his phone. As it has been for the entire time I’ve known him, Dallas prefers to find songs he wants to listen to on YouTube. I don’t have that option–my ancient MacBook has a really, really hard time playing nicely with Flash. But I can make him a playlist with YouTube links, because it goes more with his way of doing things than, say, putting a bunch of mp3s into a .zip file and emailing them to him.
“First Day of My Life”, Bright Eyes. “Yours is the first face that I saw / I think I was blind before I met you.”
“You Picked Me”, A Fine Frenzy. “And all I can say / Is you blow me away.”
“Think of Me”, Rosi Golan. “I will make you believe, oh / That I’m in this crazy love for the long haul.”
“Your Song”, Ellie Goulding (covering Elton John). “Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean / Is yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“Such Great Heights”, Ben Folds (covering The Postal Service). “And true, it may seem like a stretch / But it’s thoughts like this that catch / My troubled head when you’re away / When I am missing you to death.”
“Can’t Help Falling In Love”, Ingrid Michaelson (covering Elvis Presley and it seems like almost everybody else). “Like a river flows surely to the sea / Darling, so it goes, some things are meant to be.”
Mitten Bird 