mix

One of the things I hated about my old car was that there was no music to be had. The cassette player and radio haven't worked in several years. On the day that C and I returned from Ireland in March of 2001, we had to drive back to Austin from DFW the same night, not arriving until around midnight. In retrospect, it was a pretty foolish plan, making that four-hour journey after having travelled all day from Ireland, but we had to be back the following day; there were no other options. So we sang in the car, in the dark of the night in rural Texas, to keep ourselves awake.

One of the great features of my new car is its outstanding audio system. It's got a radio (that works), a cassette player, and a CD player all built in. It has given me the impetus to start burning mix CDs to listen to in my car.

I'm sure all y'all mix tape aficionados have known this for a long time, but there's a science to creating a mix of music intended for other people's ears. In my case, my primary audience is C, who is far too picky for her own good. Here are the criteria to which I must adhere, if I hope for her to get any enjoyment from a mix CD:

• There must be no men singing on the CD.


• There must be no sad songs (or at the very least, sad songs must be kept to a minimum.


• There should be no orchestral introduction to any song on the CD.


• There must be one catch-song. (We'll cover this later.)


• The general tempo of the mix CD should not be too slow.


• The songs on the CD should not be too folky.

Some of these requirements, I've learned by trial and error. Others, I've been aware of for a long time. And the truth is? I kind of like sad songs. They're pretty, if melancholy. And I really like folky music. The majority of my music collection is made up of cool folky singers you've never heard of, and I like it that way.

So every once in a while, I'll go about putting together a new mix CD. The first mix CD I put together was wildly successful (though somewhat by accident) with the exception of the last two tracks (see the rule about orchestral arrangements above). Any new CD has to have the potential to be more popular than the original, or we'll just go back to listening to the original.

It was an inspired move on my part to include the Dixie Chicks' cover of "Landslide" on that first CD. It became the catch-song, hidden among Dar Williams, Ani Difranco, Erin McKeown, and Lucy Kaplansky, and we sometimes hit the rewind button to listen to it over and over and over.

I made a couple of well-intentioned mix CDs after that one. One introduced an instrumental piece by the Reivers (which was made up of both men and women, but you'd never know that from the song), as well as one of my favorite Nanci Griffith songs. That one was a no-go. Nanci was too folky, and C made fun of her twangy pronunciations. C has clearly never heard Nanci's weird pronunciations, because what she thought sounded twangy was pretty damned normal.

And then, while C was home in Romania over the summer, I began working on a compilation of new songs. I left it running as a playlist on iTunes at work so that I could adjust it as needed, and eventually, I came up with what I thought was the world's most perfect mix CD. It was liberally sprinkled with all the usual suspects: Ani, Dar, Erin; no Lucy this time, because C got tired of listening to Lucy when the cats were kittens and would cry all day unless Lucy was playing. (See? This is complicated.) And then I added "London Rain" by Heather Nova. That last choice is a bit out of place on this CD, being the only single of the compilation ever played on mainstream radio, but I put it near the end and hoped for the best. Turns out, "London Rain" may be the catch-song for this compilation! C hit rewind twice yesterday to hear it again.

The next challenge? Coming up with a mix CD to use for our upcoming road trip.