A Heartshaped Mixtape

The "Musings" category on this blog is one of my favorite series of posts. Don't you love it when you meet someone new (or are hanging out with a close friend) and they ask you a question about yourself that you don't know the answer to, OR that you have a really interesting answer for, but no one ever asks about that topic? That's what I aim for with this category. 

This question has been on my list for a while, but Valentine's Day seems like the perfect time to ask it: 

Did you ever make a mixtape for a sweetheart? If so, what was the format, and what music did you choose?

I do love sharing playlists on Spotify, but it sure was romantic when someone you admired handed you a hard copy, freshly burned soundtrack to their heart, back in the day (2005).

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Music might be able to convey all the words you are too shy to say to your crush, but mixtape songs also reveal so much about the giver. 

When Jonas and I were dating, I would give him all sorts of little gifts.  I made him some mixtapes of my favorite stuff and we still have them so that someday, our boys can listen to them (if they can find a way to play cds!) and maybe love it, maybe laugh at it. True to my tendency to overwork things, I even wrote out explanations of what I loved about each song for Jonas. 

The first song Jonas ever showed me was "Crash into Me" by Dave Matthews and I think the first one I showed him was "Coffee" by Copeland. "Crash into Me" is still our official song, and I still love "Coffee" too, though it didn't make it into our couples-hall-of-fame. The main line I wanted him to hear in that song was, "I'd stay up all night, just to hear about your day." That song perfectly captures what it's like to want to be married so bad, but be ridiculously young. 

I made a Spotify playlist of my mixtape for Jonas. I think the cds were part of my gift to him for his 19th birthday. He's turning 26 in a few days! It's both fun and embarrassing (Angels and Airwaves) to look back on this playlist. There were a few songs that I had totally forgotten about ("Silence" by Takka Takka), but one song that's on here that gets me just as much as ever is Joni Mitchell's "For Free". Most of all, I love that these discs are like a time capsule of our relationship. It already feels like a long time ago. 

There were a few songs I couldn't find on Spotify, and in a way, the missing songs are the songs that make these discs special. Back when everyone had CDs and owned the songs they listened to, you went out of your way to own the special stuff (or at least burn a hard copy of the rare versions of things).  Songs not on the playlist:

Sweet Nothings by Venice Maki
Swse Me by Michalis Hatzigiannis
Track 15 - a Russian techno-dance song
Eternal by Evanescence
Love 'em and Kiss 'em by Plumb

If you were to make your significant other (or secret crush!) a mixtape today, what's one song that would for sure be on it?