Mix Me Another One and Say Goodbye

Music is foreplay.

At least, that's what my education as a mix tape maker/receiver tells me. Haven't you ever seen High Fidelity? (If not, do.) It's all about the tape. It's all about how you get someone else to melody, poeticize, lyricize your way into the receiver's listening heart. I mean, don't get me wrong, some mix tapes are purely platonic exemplifications of whatever awesome music you feel like sharing with another person who may also appreciate said music. But other mix tapes... other mix tapes are foreplay.

Those mix tapes are collections of jumbled up musical emotions, a playlist of well-chosen, well-spoken words set to well-timed, well-written music; they are wrought with emotion that the maker feels, has felt, or intends to feel with, for or about the person who is on the receiving end of the tape.

Mix tapes of that variety are foreplay.

I recently excommunicated someone very important from my life. I didn't see it coming, which made the decision simultaneously difficult and necessary. See, I have a general rule about people who I make time for in my life - be that emotional time, physical time, mental time, whatever - and that rule is: Don't hurt me.

This person broke the rule. So. I had to be ruthless. I had to eliminate the chance that this person would hurt me again in the future. And, it's not easy. It wasn't easy. It's not easy to extract someone you love from other things you love and know to be normal, comfortable, hopeful, and enjoyable. It's not easy to pretend like someone does not exist purely for one's own self-preservation. It's especially hard for me, because I tend to put others before myself. And, he needs a friend. I know that. I just can't be that friend to him anymore.

Christmas occurred prior to this friend departure, and he gifted me a very thoughtful, very generous gift: An iTouch. He also most graciously loaded a total of 112 albums onto the iTouch that he thought I would like. Some were familiar, and carried a lot of emotional weight between us. American Football's self-titled album, Jimmy Eat World's "Clarity," and The Promise Ring's "30 Degrees Everywhere," to name a few. Others, however, I hadn't ever heard.

It was an 8GB mix tape.

But, it turns out, it wasn't foreplay. It was an epilogue.

Recently, after a few weeks of listening to the music that I know I love on the now-called "Epilogue Mix," I began to explore the other, unfamiliar artists that he had uploaded.

Des Ark was the first one. (I'm moving in alphabetical order, see.)

Since the first chord, since the first twang of her voice, since the first second, I have been utterly obsessed. One song, in particular, on one album, in particular, has been on repeat so many times that if it were, in fact, a tape, this part would be worn through, sounding especially scratchy and well-loved.

At this moment, with these feelings about this one person, who took up ten years of my loving life, and who loves someone else now, I can honestly say that if there could only be one song on my mix tape, this might be it.

Lord Of The Ring

I never met a chase that I could not catch
Never fallen in love & not been bored with it.
I never asked a lover for their help
You learn better when you're always
Picking lovers who can't help themselves.

& I don't wanna try so hard anymore,
I don't want a fucking lover who makes me feel like a failure.
It ain't about the saints that we shoulda been
What is done is done, I'm heartbroken,
& I'm dealing with it.

Oh it feels good to be used when you're using.
Oh it feels good to be used when you're using.
Oh it feels good to be used when you're using.

It's a given that you love her
But what would you think
If you fucked her & she cried
"Your love is poisoning me"
Which is exactly what i meant when i said it
Say, the only way I know to say I Love You anymore,
Is to let you go.

So. There you have it.

The epilogue. Who knew it'd be sweeter than the decade it's meant to summarize? Not me.

PS I tried to find the track online so you could hear it, but I can't. Take my word for it, eh? It's fucking amazing. Acoustic. Recorded live.