Backleftlitz Winter Mix ‘11
Artwork:
(That above says ‘CD Freckles’ by the way. Realized it was dumb before I was even finished writing it, but I only had one blank CD. Also if you can’t read my handwriting I’ve typed this all up under the ‘Read More.’)
This Mix CD Might Be Useful As:
Other Notes:
Track List:
1) “Carolyn’s Fingers”—Cocteau Twins
2) “Die in Bed”—Frank (Just Frank)
3) “Fishing Bird (Empty Jutted in the Evening Breeze)”—Grouper
4) “Warm Room”—Jane Pow
5) “40 Days”—Slowdive
6) “Bruises”—Minks
7) “Mistress”—Red House Painters
8) “Grey Skies”—Secret Shine
9) “To Wish Impossible Things”—The Cure
10) “Gemini”—Wild Nothing
Download Link:
Is here. I don’t really know how to use Mediafire, so you have to download all the songs individually, and also then arrange them in the order listed above on an iTunes playlist, so if that’s too much effort I totally understand. Also if you recorded or have a financial stake in these songs, or take issue with the idea of freely distributed music, please send me a message and I’ll take these sad, sad songs down immediately.
This Mix CD Might Be Useful As:
1) A soundtrack to comfort a goth kid cyrogenically frozen in 1989 and re-heated earlier this afternoon.
2) A rebuttal to the oft-levied accusation that you “don’t have the balls to properly engage with fey, delicate shoegaze songs!”
3) A primary resource for your term paper on that rare, sick breed of music fan that seems to get some weird pleasure out of being sad.
4) A can’t-fail key to the heart of literally anyone (who enjoys being sad, and who also bases their romantic decisions on the content and quality of mix CDs. So: literally any 16-year-old!) (That doesn’t sound right.)
5) A way to put your cranky toddler to sleep, and to ensure that he/she grows up even more self-indulgent/-hating than the rest of us.
6) A way to incorrectly answer the question “does anyone have a playlist they want to put on for the party?” (Can be the correct answer, if your host is Robert Smith, and if you spend most of your time at parties staring mournfully past whoever you’re talking to and out the window, contemplating the streetlights’ hue/your own mortality.)
7) Currency, in certain countries.
8) A workout playlist, if your workout routine consists mostly of straining your face muscles in various expressions of agony, regret and nostalgia.
9) A sort of aural sweater.
Other Notes:
So anything ever posted on this blog exists in handwritten form in one of dozens of CVS notebooks helping (along with dirty laundry, empty Dorito bags and cigarette boxes, books half-read and glasses half-filled with tap water or clear liquor so you never really know what you’re gonna get when you reach for one in the morning) to give my bedroom its cozy, “lived in” (by an unkempt serial killer in-between gigs) vibe; I’m not really capable of ‘writing’ (if that’s what this is) on a computer, and also in a sense writing for me is just an excuse to move a pen around a piece of paper, I like the feeling, like I could be writing gibberish right now and be just as entertained, but actually writing gibberish is harder than stringing thoughts together and putting them up online, so that’s what I do.
Point being that if I ever made you your own personalized mixtape (which I would never, ever do) it would probably come with a little note like this.
Making a public mixtape is liberating, because you don’t have to worry about how each song’s lyrics will be interpreted. For this reason, when I actually do get around to making mixtapes I make sure to exclusively include songs with lyrics either so distorted as to be inaudible, or so vague as to mean nothing.
But also let’s say I have fooled a girl into spending time with me (potentially by claiming to be friends with Casey Affleck, or with the magic tricks I have long staked my reputation on) and in an effort to showcase that part of me usually obscured by bad jokes or inarticulate ramblings or long, made up stories about hunting with Case Race (my nickname for Casey Affleck) I put the song “Mistress” by Red House Painters on a mixtape for her because listening to that song makes me feel more like myself (or the “myself” I’d like to be, I guess).
Well then there are two problems of interpretation here
1) Because as humans we look for meaning in everything and especially in personal gifts of plaintive, emotionally charged rock music burnt onto a CD-R, what if she hears the line “I need someone much more mysterious to be my mistress?” and thinks I am calling her transparent, and also that I am married? I mean obviously that’s a terrible example and no one (excepting Case Race on a bender) is that literal-minded, but there are better examples, like songs that prominently feature the word ‘love,’ which is a lot of songs. And also
2) Music that sounds good to you can sound bad to people who aren’t you.
