More mix tapes

I know they're mix CDs, but it's vestigial. It just doesn't sound as good or feel as natural as "mix tapes."

Anyway, Janice got a new CD today. Number 27:

Homecoming

1. Today I Met The Girl I'm Going To Marry - The Nation Of Ulysses

2. Hole In My LIfe - The Police

3. Red River - Rocky Votolato

4. You're the One That I Want - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

5. I'll Be Gone - Dwight Yoakam

6. Mercy, Mercy - Don Covay

7. Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers

8. Last Night I Didn't Get to Sleep At All - The 5th Dimension

9. If Only Tonight We Could Sleep - The Cure

10. Cherry Bomb - The Runaways

11. Feel U Up - Prince

12. Hot Rod - Peaches

13. Got Your Money - Wu-Tang Vs The Beatles

14. Just the Way You Are - Billy Joel

15. There Are Worse Things I Could Do - Stockard Channing

16. Marry Me - Dolly Parton

17. Lucky Clover Coin - Rocky Votolato

18. All I Want - The Cure

19. Wait for Me - The Runaways

20. Lonely - Rollins Band

21. Light Light Sleep - Gossip

Most of that CD was made in the final month that I was on the road, and in the period just after Janice and I had gotten engaged. I think a lot of the CDs I've made her have revolved around being away from home, missing her, life "on tour." This one obviously has marriage as a theme as well. Janice has a hard time sleeping when I'm away, and that comes up a lot here, too.

I've been on a country music tear lately, and people have been sending me some great suggestions that show up here. Sometimes a song sneaks up on me (I'm a radio listener, which may surprise you), and the Shazam app on my iPhone has definitely helped me collect and reconnect with a lot of songs from my childhood (Bill Withers, The 5th Dimension, Don Covay) when they pop up on random radio stations across the country.

Sometimes the theme of a song doesn't really fit, but there are lines in a song that stand out and take on their own meaning. Red River falls in that category. It's a song about a soldier, but the chorus is bigger than that:

I’ve been searching for the waves to carry us home
To the ocean we all came from, where we’ll all be returned
I’ve been searching for the waves to carry us home
To the ocean we all came from, where we’ll all be dissolved into one

Rocky is always amazing, and sometimes he just nails it with the whole song, like Lucky Clover Coin:

You found a Three Leaf Clover Coin
You said it was good luck and I think it will be

Your eyes are broken glass the shattered light
Shines on everything you see
There’s a world I want to leave behind
Where a sunset in a constant bloody winter
Gives the only light, and with it I hoped I would disappear
You’re keeping me alive
‘Till the sunlight shows spring roses in water
And for the rest of my life
I’ll put your broken pieces back together

I want to spend more time with you
Because you make me happy
It’s something I’d been so little of
But you showed me that I can be
There’s a world I want to leave behind
Where a sunset in a constant bloody winter
Gives the only light, and with it I hoped I would disappear
You’re keeping me alive
‘Till the sunlight shows spring roses in water

And for the rest of my life, I’ll put your broken pieces together
And for the rest of my life, I’ll put your broken pieces together
For the rest of my life, I only want to walk the way you showed me

The quietest part of the song, and the line that pops every time, is "I want to spend more time with you because you make me happy." The song would be a knife in the heart if he only sang that over and over.

Sometimes songs make it on just because that's what I've been listening to a ton. I was on obsessed with the Grease soundtrack for a week or so (Rizzo over Sandy, any day), the new Rocky record, The Runaways (because of the new movie) and Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, and Loretta Lynn. But then there's stuff I'm always listening to: Prince, Peaches, The Gossip, The Police, Rollins Band, The Cure. I don't think I've made Janice a single CD that didn't have at least one Prince song on it.

And of course, to counter the new, I'll give you a track list from one of the old. This was the second CD I made Janice, sometime in the summer of 2007, called "The Lambs, Janice!" I don't know how it started, but when we first started dating I used to quote Silence of the Lambs to her and pronounce "Janice" like it rhymed with "Clarice," in my best Anthony Hopkins voice. "Well, Janice - have the lambs stopped screaming?" You can't explain why dumb things are cute when two people are falling in love with each other. This CD was definitely meant to be partially an invitation, partially a warning, and partially a confession. We really liked each other, we were both coming out of relationships, and we both could potentially do each other a lot of harm.

1. I Don't Want to Fall In Love - She Wants Revenge

2. Let's Pretend We're Married - Prince

3. Call Me Mommy - The Make-Up

4. Hire a Bird - Think Tree

5. Sex (I'm A) - Peaches

6. 99 Problems -Jay-Z

7. You Can Do It - Ice Cube

8. Rebound - Sebadoh

9. I Think She Likes Me - Treat Her Right

10. Portland Is Leaving - Rocky Votolato

11. What I've Waited For - The Jumblies

12. (Kind of) True - The Golden Palominos

13. Beautiful Close Double - Damon & Naomi

14. Can't Take My Eyes Off You - Frankie Valli

15. Look Sharp! - Joe Jackson

16. Promises - Fugazi

17. Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge

18. Head - Prince

19. Casanova - Peaches