Bizarre Love Triangle

I have to go back even further. I have to take the tape out, change sides, and hit rewind. I hope it does rewind. I hope I don’t have to get out a pencil and rewind it. I guess I don’t have to do that any more. I can get there with a few clicks of the button, modern technology being what it is now. I do miss making mixedtapes. There was something endearing in the mixedtape process, a personal message in 15 to 16 songs. There was work involved. There was planning. There were notebooks and looking up song times. Was it a 90 minute tape? Was it a 60 minute tape? That means math was involved. I think we all knew this, and appreciated how much work went into making the greatest mixedtape in the world. The goal was to create an emotional blanket that wraps around the listener without them even knowing. She loved my tapes. She didn’t even know most of the damn songs on the tapes, and she would still listen to them over and over. They would become apart of her, and I’m still not sure it meant as much to her as it did to me. I still loved her for trying. However, she used to tell me that I was lost in the music. I was too sensitive for the world today. A mixedtape couldn’t solve anything. She must have told me that a hundred times. Music can’t solve problems. She said that a hundred and one times. She was right about that. Music has never solved one problem, at least not for me. Maybe if I actually wrote or played a song it would. I’m sure there is a musician somewhere that’s saying, “Dude. It solves stuff.”

Music, while not solving problems, does change moods and feelings. It can enhance a myriad of different moments. The moments can be small and insignificant. They can be momentous and life changing. You wont even realize it in the moment. You may not even realize until years later. It can transport you to a different place and time. You will be in Nordstrom and New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” will come on, and you’ll remember driving around all night with your friends. There was nowhere to go and you were headed in no particular direction. You followed a car full of girls because you thought the driver was a girl you worked with at Tower Records. Now the girl at the counter in Nordstrom wonders why you’ve spaced out buying another blue, button-down shirt for a corporate job you barely tolerate. You look up and say, “Sorry, it’s Bernard Sumner’s fault.” She won’t get the reference. If she was the girl in the car that you thought was the girl from Tower Records, she would have. That girl knew music. That girl was different. That girl had a blonde streak in her dark uneven bangs, and the Marilyn piercing way before anyone else did. You remember the song. Tower records. Driving around with your idiot friends. You remember everything about the girl, but her name. What the hell is her name? You’re so distracted, you leave your 35th blue shirt on the counter, the Nordstrom girl calls out, “Sir. Your shirt.” You walk back. Look at the girl. She smiles. You look at her name tag and a smile that would eat your normal smile takes over your face and say, “Thanks. You’re Allison huh? I worked with an Ali years ago. She knows who Bernard Sumner is.”