Stashed away in shoeboxes, basements, and broom closets around the world are some of our greatest treasures.
That’s where we might find old prom photos, expired driver’s licenses, handwritten letters from faraway friends, or maybe, if we’re really lucky, one of those beautiful gems known as an old Love Tape.
Love Tapes are simply any mix tape carefully put together by someone who like-likes you. Yes, that blurry, distant boyfriend or girlfriend probably spent hours timing songs to fit perfectly on a side of a tape, painstakingly scrawled out love notes and drawings on stickers, and maybe, if you’re lucky, even sprayed it with a bit of perfume.
Depending on your time frame, your mix tape, or mix 8-track, or mix CD may contain gems such as:
- Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers
- More Than Words by Extreme
- Everything I Do (I Do It For You) by Bryan Adams
- Can’t Help Falling In Love by UB40
- I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston
- I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) by Meatloaf
- My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion
- Is This Love by Bob Marley
- End Of The Road by Boyz II Men
- You Were Meant For Me by Jewel
- God Only Knows by The Beach Boys
- Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper
- Eternal Flame by The Bangles
So search your heart. Search your soul. And when you find mix tapes there, you will search no more. So don’t tell me, they’re not worth looking for. You can’t tell me, they’re not worth searching for. You know it’s true. Everything mix tapes do.
They do it for you.
AWESOME!
Photos from: here, here, and here
25 Comments
December 16, 2008 at 2:02 am
Dude. I think my high school boyfriend gave me a mix tape with that EXACT playlist.
May 14, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I remember making a mixed ‘ mood’ tape, if you will. I knew my girlfreind at the time was coming over, so i need some music to set the mood, if you will. Well the taped worked and while i was giving her the virgin salami, the song rocket ride by kiss came on and i started laughing my ass off, or i mean laughing my rocks off! Wow , that was a long time ago, i still remember her name…Janet Sloan…Hi Janet!
December 16, 2008 at 8:30 am
*heavy sigh* once again, spot on.
you don’t have a device rigged into all of our heads and hearts, do you?
wonderful post … as usual.
December 16, 2008 at 10:28 am
The last mixtape I got out, the first song was 702′s “Where my girls at?”
Ahhh the 90s.
December 16, 2008 at 10:29 am
I’m too young to have experienced the mixtape era. The effort it took to record all the songs on a cassette. Nowadays it’s just click click click and done.
Sad that mixtapes have become kind of cheesy in recent years (decades). I would love to give my special girl a mixtape…someday.
You missed Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton
December 16, 2008 at 11:34 am
^ also missed Have I told You Lately by Rod Stewart :D
December 16, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I still have one an ex-girlfriend gave me. When she handed it to me, she told me, “I hope this tape shows you how wrong you were to break up with me.”
It did. It included a song by No Doubt.
December 16, 2008 at 1:09 pm
@ Megan: I think I gave that EXACT mix tape to a girlfriend in high school. Did we date?
And totally agree with Daniel above – mix tapes today just wouldn’t have the same impact. I remember fiddling with getting the tapes set just right, and having a song get cut-off half way when you run out of tape on side A (and you’re faced with the dilemma of either including half a song, or continuing the song on the other side).
Man – mix tapes really bring me back.
December 16, 2008 at 3:46 pm
In high school my group of friends almost got into a fist fight over an allegedly stolen mixed tape.
It never occured to us that we could have made copies of it.
It also never occured to us that none of us knew how to fight.
December 16, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Dude, I have an iPod.
May 27, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Dude, mixtapes are better.
December 16, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Man, what I wouldn’t give to get back some of those mix tapes I made for different guys over the years. Each one was like a finely crafted masterpiece and included all the songs I would have written if I wasn’t only 13 and tone deaf. There’s only one problem…
…I don’t have a tape player anymore.
December 16, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I used to deejay so I had two turntables and a mixing board so I used to mix the music with no gaps in between. I once found a Sony premium cassette that was meant for “the girl of my dreams” at college. I played it on an old cassette player. The play list was Prince slow jams on both sides ending in Purple Rain. She would have loved it!
December 17, 2008 at 3:56 am
You forgot to mention the mark of a true love mix tape! When the songs are taped off the radio!!
My favorite ones were filled with background noise and conversation that the recorder picked up while it was held up to the cheesy radio station…
December 17, 2008 at 8:37 am
I’ve never gotten a mixtape, well maybe because my teenager years started exactly in the 2000′s.
No matter how cheesy they seem nowadays, I’d still love to get one.
December 17, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Mixtapes will always have a special place in my heart. I think if, in this day and age, someone were to actually make the effort to make a real mixtape, I’d be forced to fall madly in love with that person.
I remember when I was younger, spending so much time calling up the radio station to request a song and then waiting with my finger painstakingly hovering over the record button so as to not miss a single second.
December 19, 2008 at 8:01 am
Mix tapes are the best presents ever!
As Kate Monster sings in Avenue Q:
‘A mix tape.
He made a mix tape.
He was thinking of me,
Which shows he cares!
Sometimes when someone
Has a crush on you
They’ll make you a mix tape
To give you a clue.’
December 27, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Back in the day, if I’d been dating a girl and she gave me a mixtape without a Clash or Ramones song on it, she’d be out the door quicker than the bagged cat droppings. Any of those songs you listed that weren’t by The Beach Boys?? Justifiable homicide.
March 14, 2009 at 8:49 am
It’s the first time I commented here and I should say you provide genuine, and quality information for other bloggers! Good job.
p.s. You have an awesome template . Where did you find it?
October 24, 2009 at 4:05 pm
My high school boyfriend called me the other day to say he was listening to a mix-CD I made for him a couple of years ago. He had found it stashed in a drawer, and he loved hearing it again.
November 20, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I swear I have put literally eight of those songs in a mixed cd for my ex!
Haha this is so funny man.
February 14, 2010 at 10:37 pm
today is obviously vday.
and my valentine (my crush/not my bf)
gavee me a mix CD of underground love hip hop songs :)))
April 1, 2010 at 11:51 pm
now see, this kind of stuff simply doesn’t sound right
April 20, 2010 at 3:01 am
[...] #873 Finding a mix tape given to you by an old boyfriend or girlfriend [...]
May 25, 2010 at 10:54 pm
is the meatloaf song about anal sex or what?
what else could it POSSIBLY be?