So I think it’s time to make a new compilation album, or mix-tape, if you will. I am endlessly listening to songs and lyrics worthy enough to make my own personal best-of music album (since I am not talented enough to make the music myself). The problem is that this is a GIANT undertaking for me. I’ve made many, many of these “albums”, but nobody ever knows about them because I very seldomly ever mention it to anyone. In fact, only one of these albums has ever gone to “press”. Ruminations Under a Dreaming Tree has been the only one and only 8 original copies were made (you can see the covers in my pictures) and of those, only 3 were actually given out to a few special people.
A friend of mine once said he was going to make a mix-album for his new girlfriend. I tried to disuade him from doing this. In my world, “my” music is very personal. A lot of what I listen to many people have never heard before or could care less to listen to. Most of this music is very special to me for one reason or another. This is why I tried to keep my buddy from giving his girl the mix-tape. I told him that it was HIS music. At that point he had not been with her for very long and I tried to tell him that he doesn’t know if she is worthy yet of receiving HIS thoughts and feelings through music (he gave it to her anyway). Yeah, I know it’s completely ate up, but that’s how I feel about it. The music is MINE! I might let you randomly listen to it from time to time, but you’ve got to be pretty special if I am to share it with you in this type of format (maybe this is related to the fear of committment some people wrongly accuse me of having, who knows).
If you are familiar with either the book or the movie High Fidelity you understand that there is a certain art to making the perfect compilation. Yeah, and I take this like a million steps further. I always like to tell a story or give a theme with the music I select while staying inside certain boundaries and rules as depicted by the aforementioned book and movie. Usually, most of the songs are about relationships and suffering within them, but not all. I don’t just put all my favorite songs in any random order. Some make the cut, some do not. On Ruminations, there were a number of songs that were on-again, off-again, on-again. The songs have to fit the mood you are trying to create or fit into the story you are trying to tell. The tough part is telling the perfect story through the words of many different people. I always find this fascinating, using other people’s songs to create a mood or invoke an emotion.
Anyway, I think I’ve found enough songs for my next album. I thought my second “release” would be the Angel Album. I would love to make an album where all the songs have to do with angels, because for some reason, I like songs that have to do with angels. That being said, the Angel Album will have to wait another day. I’ve got other things to tend to first. For some reason I think angels are fairly uplifting and I’m so not into making an uplifting cd at this particular point in time. This next one, I think, will be mostly about one of my favorite subjects, breaking up with your special someone! I don’t know, for some reason this stuff gets my rocks off. Lucky for me, there’s a lot of music on this topic.
I’m leaning towards using “The Last Goodbye” for the title, but it’s still up in the air. Yes, I know it’s a Jeff Buckley rip, go to hell. Naturally, once I get going on this during my vacation I will completely change my mind and all the songs I have planned will be cut-out and new ones will be added and then cut and I’ll keep changing the cover art over and over and then I’ll hear some new song and try to figure where to put it because it belongs but it just doesn’t fit and I’m gonna have to get rid of some other song that deserves to be on the cd and then it will be just about complete, but then something won’t be just right and I can’t get the order of the songs just right and the first song just doesn’t catch your attention enough and the title needs to be changed and I’ll go mad and stay up until 4am pining over this for many nights even though it’s really no big deal because it’s just a “mix-tape”.
Ry