I’ve always been one of those folks that arranges musical recordings based on a theme.  I was going through a bunch of my old audio cassettes (anybody remember those?), and found a  box of 15 “themed” cassettes.  They’re all “emotionally” themed works, with titles like: Venom, Nostalgic, Love Songs, etc. I’ll probably make it a project to replicate all of these into WMP “play lists” eventually.  I think I already did it for a pair of cassettes I recorded featuring Annie Lennox/The Eurythmics; One called Love, & the other called Anger… In fact I think I may have blogged about this particular compilation once upon a time. Yup, here it is: Love & Anger, Lennox Style. Wow, almost a year to the date! LOL!

While perusing this cache, I found three tapes I had made about people I was infatuated with at the time.  What’s funny is I named them something else, but seeing the cassettes reminded me who they were originally recorded for/about.  The earliest one is simply titled “Love Songs;” and it was originally recorded while I was going out with my very first lover.  I used to listen to this in my truck a lot during a two hour drive I used to make regularly out into the Utah mountains, with his picture stuck to the dashboard – how sappy is that! Oh well, what can I say, first love is always “intense.”  There isn’t a date on this one, like my later ones, but it would’ve been done sometime in the late 80’s or very early 90’s:

Love Songs:

• Moments in Love – Art of Noise
• Kiss – Art of Noise /w Tom Jones
• In The Flesh – Blondie
• Fall– Berlin (couldn’t find a vid for this one, but here’s lyrics)
• Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce
• Love Song – The Cure
• Be – Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Neil Diamond)
• Take Me to Your Heart – Eurythmics
• Songbird – Fleetwood Mac
• In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
• Kiss of Life – Gene Loves Jezebel
• Never Tear Us Apart– INXS
• La Eile – Don Henley
• Your Song – Elton John
• Unconditional Love– Cindy Lauper
• Live to Tell – Madonna
• Nothing Else Matters– Metallica
• Still Loving You – Scorpions
• Magic – Mysterious Art
• Try to Believe– Oingo Boingo

The next tape in the line-up was actually labelled “Bill’s Tape” and then re-named “Dedicated.”  It was recorded December 13, 1994; a couple weeks after Bill moved from Portland, Oregon for San Francisco and just before I visited him over the Christmas Holiday. Bill was an ex porn star and was 50 years old at the time, and still hotter than fuck!  I was 28 – yowza!

“Bill’s Tape” aka “Dedicated 12-13-94”

• Interstate Love Song – Stone Temple Pilots
• Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
• Send Me an Angel – Scorpions
• Running Up That Hill – Kate Bush
• Come To My Window– Melissa Etheridge
• Still Loving You – Scorpions (see above)
• I Feel Love– Bronski Beat (w/ Marc Almond)
• Grand Designs – Rush
• Ghost of a Chance – Rush
• Love Song for a Vampire– Lennox
• Texarkana – REM
• Better Than The Real Thing – U2
• One More Night – Sandra
• Cold Fire – Rush
• Sin – Nine Inch Nails
• I’m The Only One– Melissa Etheridge
• Sensual World – Kate Bush
• I Can’t Explain – Scorpions (cover of The Who original)
• A Night to Remember– Cindy Lauper
• Emotion Detector – Rush

And finally, a recording I made for someone who I really wanted to fall in love with and to become totally infatuated with, but never did. Although we did become great friends, and still are. I’d fallen hard for one other guy after “Bill” above and I guess I’d just gotten too protective to allow myself to rip my heart to shreds anymore, lol.  Anyways, this tape was made for a special Valentine’s Day dinner back in 1998, and I duplicated many of the songs from the above selections. It’s simply titled “Valentine’s 1998.” And I’ve been mostly content and alone ever since.

Valentine’s 1998:

• The Sensual World – Kate Bush
• You’re My Best Friend – Queen
• Tonight’s The Night – Rod Stewart
• Fall – Berlin
• Songbird – Fleetwood Mac
• In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
• Love Song – The Cure
• Love Song for a Vampire – Lennox
• Moments In Love – Art of Noise
• Falling – “Twin Peaks” Soundtrack (Julie Cruise)
• Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce
• Come Undone – Duran Duran
• The Miracle of Love– Eurythmics
• Head Over Feet– Alanis Morrisette
• Never Tear Us Apart – INXS
• The Power of Love – Frankie Goes to Hollywood.  If I were to do it again I’d use the Oomph! cover
• I’m On Your Side– DiVinyls
• Time & Tide – Basia
• Your Song – Elton John
• The Promise – When In Rome
• New Year’s Day – U2 (actually this used to be on my “original” Love Songs compilation but it fell off for some reason)
• Ghost of a Chance – Rush

Well I hope you enjoyed this time capsule of nostalgia 😀  I’ve certainly enjoyed going back and looking at some of these old videos, when I could find them, and listening to some of these great songs again.  I hope you did too! Enjoy!