it's the noise that makes me human

[threeplusfire]

My friend in_thy_bounty posted this and I was overwhelmed by memories of making mixtapes.

Those of us caught on the wrong side of 30 will remember making mixtapes for friends. You'd spend ages thinking about what to put on it, the running order (you couldn't be running out of tape halfway through a song after all), how it would be received by the person and how it would make you look. By the end of the process, you were really handing over a representation of yourself, your very essence distilled down into magnetic signals. It's 10 years since I last recorded a cassette, and it was already anachronistic then; but today we have the internet, and Livejournal is the perfect podium for your virtual mixtape. Give your tape a title, choose your tracks, put up links to the songs on youtube (they're always on youtube), talk a little bit about each one, what it means to you etc. Or don't, just stick up the songs and say absolutely nothing, maybe that's part of your whole mystique. Just go and be yourself, share a little part of yourself with your online friends, and make the world a better place*.

*world may not actually improve as a result of your post

So while I wait on many, many gigabytes of files to upload for work I will compose this mix tape for you.



I enjoy summer, but there's always a dark edge to blinding sunlight. Summers are so often when I've had to put my heart and my head back together. So here are songs that make me think of that light and heat all shot through with pain.

Tori Amos - Take to the Sky
A song on a mix cd given to me by the girl who fucked my boyfriend. He came home from a trip out to see her in another state. The whole time he was gone I was horribly sick, feverish and out of my mind. When I saw the scratches on him I just knew in that visceral way exactly what had happened. It touched off one of our biggest fights. What a damned disaster we were for each other.

Counting Crows - I Wish I Was a Girl
That song title is eerie in retrospect, because so much of my sadness was about not being the right kind of girl or enough of a girl for other people. I was not out to anyone about being trans back then.

Remy Zero - Impossibility
I would walk the streets of Brno alone, listening to this, living in some private music video. I was so broken then and only just starting to put myself together. Sometimes I wanted to stand on the street and shout this out aloud. I was hoping I would rise above my own doubts and fears, just like the song.

Depeche Mode - It's No Good
During university I ran away to Prague to deal with my madness, my broken heart, all the things shattered in me from the terrible things in my teenage years. Hana was right, it did save my life. I listened to Depeche Mode on my discman.

Bella Morte - Fall No More
A song off a complitation cd I bought right after I left Alan. Part of my escapism that summer was immersing myself in the sadness of VtM. Music From the Succubus Club was a collection of songs meant to represent different vampire clans. I think this is actually the Gangrel clan theme which is a clan I've never played.

Razed in Black - Blush
During the months after I left Alan and started divorce proceedings I drove around in my brand new car listening to this album over and over and over. It will always sound like pain. Sometimes they play this at Elysium and I dance to it.

Assemblage 23 - The Noise Inside My Head (Alter der Ruine remix)
This was something I listened to obsessively last year while greiving for so much lost time and chances I would never have again. When James died it fucked me up harder than I expected. This was one of the things that saved me.

Mission UK - Last Beat of Your Heart
Another song from the Succubus Club album and it is the Brujah clan theme. It's one of those things I listen to when I feel angry and despairing. I should get them to play it at the club some Saturday, because maybe it would help to stomp around to this like someone possessed. Sometimes the only way to get rid of the feeling is to physically do something.

Funland - Die Like A Satellite
Funland was one of the Dallas bands we saw often at Liberty Lunch or summer festivals. I bought their cassette and I think I even had them sign it for me. James bought the shirt. I sit on James' grave sometimes and listen to this song. It reminds me of how young and strange we were. It's just a damn good song and sounds like all the rock music I loved at fifteen.

Imogen Heap - The Walk
Something I've listened to recently. Because it is not what I planned at all, sometimes. I have this terrible habit of letting my memories obsessively cloud my vision, bringing back a dormant pain. I've made some mistakes and I know that's only human but I feel despair about it.

Comments

[lolliejean.livejournal.com]

This is a very fine mix and I'm happy you shared it. That being said I'm sending out loving mojo in hopes that you will find more of the bright golden edge of the sunlight. You've walked a hard road. Me too. But we keep coming into our own along the way. xo

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Much of my summers have been glorious too - my first time in Prague for example and the summer I fell in love with Alan even if that ended as a disaster.

I try more to do the things that make me happy lately.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

I miss mixtapes. I-whatevers are no substitute at all.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

You had to think a lot more about the timing and there was always that quick button shuffle to get stuff blended!

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

That's funny; my sweetie and I have been making mix-CD's for each other for months, complete with playlists and notes. And they are every bit as much as a piece of ourselves as mix tapes ever were. Maybe more.

And I beg to disagree with the 'wrong' side of 30 comment. There's a value judgment if I ever heard one.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I think the wrong side of 30 comment was some self deprecating humor on my friend's part. I think we are both probably happier and more together in our thirties overall.

[in-thy-bounty.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed that a lot - all but Depeche Mode I was hearing for the first time. It's actually quite eerie hearing music through the prism of someone else's experiences; thank you for sharing it all.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Well, it is always nice to show someone something new. Funland is especially dear to me. As much as these songs all evoke sadness for me, there's also a hidden fierceness to them. It's an angry sad, a sad that does not want to lay down and die. It is how I survived after all.