“My Sister” - Juliana Hatfield Three
From Become What You Are

I miss mix-tapes. I used to make them all the time – for myself, for friends, for potential loved ones. I loved having 90 minutes to be able to express myself by the songs of someone else. It was great fun to thumb through my CD collection looking for that one perfect song that expressed everything I needed to say and fit thematically between something like CCR's “As Long As I Can See The Light” and the Jayhawk's version of “The Lights.”

With CDs and iPods the mix-tape seems to have disappeared. At least round these parts anyways. Truth is though I made dozens of tapes in my day I only ever received two tapes in my life. The last was from the dear girl who became my wife and the first was from a funny, crazy lady from Arkansas affectionately known as “Woody.”

Woody made me a great mix-tape. It was fun and groovy and filled with a perfect balance of classic songs that I loved and more obscure stuff that I had never heard before. There was some Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Some Stevie Wonder and Sam and Dave. And thia great little number from Juliana Hatfield, one of Woody's favorite artists.

For a long while I only had a tape player in my car and that's where my favorite mixes got played. Woody's mix got preferential treatment for ages. Unfortunately somewhere in college I got a CD player for the car and my days of tape listening pretty much disappeared. I found Woody's tape this summer while cleaning out a bunch of junk. I gave it one last listen before tossing it out.

It was a great tape. I already miss it just as I miss those days of making mix-tapes.

I'm now in the midst of making my first mp3 playlist to give to my wife as a Christmas present. I am enjoying playing my music collection on iTunes and in my iPod and scribbling down songs that might make it into the playlist. It isn't as fun or as well planned as browsing through my CDs to make a tape, but I look forward to secretly slipping it onto my wife's iPod then telling her to play it while she's at work.