So, I was listening to the mix that I made last week and posted about on Sunday. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Most shocking, the Christmas song is not track 12, as is tradition (for it to really be tradition, I’d also have to leave it off the tracklist and let people get ambushed by it, but I’m not feeling stickler-y).
But maybe more actually egregious is this: That Lewis and Clarke song is incredibly morose. I like Lewis and Clarke. I knew, going in, that the L&C song was going to be a very pretty sounding track, but one that was also maybe a little sad or downtempo in comparison to the rest of the mix. It was a palette cleanser in between the octave of the first part of the list and the sestet of the last (yes, I did just compare this to writing a sonnet – shut up). I miscalculated when I selected the ten minute long thanatopsis that “Before It Breaks You” is. Which is then immediately followed by the happy chirping of Japanese ska teens.
I’ve also noticed that, when it comes to certain artists, I’ve been consciously trying to not use songs I listen to the most. Take Josh Ritter, for example – “Right Moves” is a perfectly okay song, but it probably wouldn’t be my first choice. I consciously picked a track that I don’t know backwards or forwards – and that isn’t the only place on the CD where I’ve done this. I think maybe it comes down to this: the goal of giving music to someone is at least in part about sharing new things and I think that I’m subconsciously avoiding things that are too familiar to me. I should stop doing that. Novelty is not the only metric for significance.
Tonight, I’m going to be trying this again. Some of the songs will stay, some will go, the order may be different. I’ll leave the old track list up as a monument to my unsuccess.
