Erin Writes

Originally published at erin-go-blog!. You can comment here or there.

(this will be the first of a series of posts)

During the move, I found a box full of old cassette tapes. Most of them were mix tapes I’ve made at one point or another…I thought it might be fun to pull them out and post the track listings with a bit of background as to what was going on in my life at the time.

I’ve arranged them more or less in chronological order. People who know me well will notice some major holes, and here’s why…after every breakup I’ve ever gone through, there’s been a massive purge. I made *dozens* of lovey-dovey mix tapes for K in college, and they’re all gone. I just couldn’t bear to have them around, and putting them in a box and hiding them wasn’t enough…

Ahem, anyway. The first one is titled “And So It Goes…”, and it was made during the summer of 1993, between my freshman and sophomore year of college. Earlier that year, I had broken up with J, and when I came home for summer vacation, I briefly dated this guy (we’ll call him E) with whom I’d engaged in mild flirtations with the previous summer. E was also freshly out of a relationship. We tried to do casual, but neither one of us seemed to do that very well…and when he finally broke it off, I made him this mix tape:

Side A

This Night — Billy Joel
And So It Goes — Billy Joel
Take This Heart — Richard Marx
Kiss — Prince
Send Her My Love — Journey
Can’t Fight This Feeling — REO Speedwagon
In Your Eyes — Peter Gabriel
Something About You — (I have no idea…I don’t even know what song this is.)
If You Leave — OMD
The Longest Time — Billy Joel

Side B

No Ordinary Love — Sade
All Shook Up — Elvis Presley
Kiss the Girl — from The Little Mermaid
Fever –
If — Janet Jackson
Paradise City — Guns ‘n Roses (this one had an inside meaning)
Can’t Help Falling in Love — Elvis Presley

(I had thrown in a couple of lame instumentals to fill up space. and as with most mix tapes, the first side is much stronger than the second…)

Was I in love with E? Did he break my heart? I don’t know…I was in a pretty vulnerable place that summer. When I think about this tape, I remember sitting alone at night on a swing at the park, wondering if anyone would ever love me again, though I know that was more about J than it was about E…

I linked to the lyrics to “This Night,” because that song, more than any other one, sums up that short-lived romance with E. We’ve been in contact since then. He’s married. And I, after a few wrong turns, soon will be. I have no hard feelings, and I smile when I think about him and the summer of 1993…

*post title is from a Trisha Yearwood song that I always powerfully identified with. Music is so strongly tied to our emotions, isn’t it?