A Tragedy

Unfortunately in this day and age, it has become absurd and ridiculous to make a mix tape. Technology has far surpassed the idea. Even mixed CD’s, are not only becoming unnecessary to trade around, but Chuck Klosterman said very well that mixed CD’s are in fact impossible. There is no possible way to force the person to listen to a CD all the way through. It was fun apparently to get a mixed tape and be able to sit down and listen to them in order for a certain story to be told. All the stories would insinuate something and it was a thrill to experience a whole segment of a person’s thought. But with CD’s it is difficult, because stories are hard to weave if they’re broken up. And even then, I had not gotten the opportunity.

But then I did.

Friday December 10th, I was invited to someone’s CD mix party. I knew the agenda right away. Everyone makes a mixed CD, brings enough copies for everyone, and everyone gets a copy. Not only would I receive some amazing music, but I would also be able to tell the creative story I had always wanted through music. It was time to write my signature on mixed CD stardom.

So first I had to establish a theme. With so much music, I assumed it would be a casual task: I was wrong. Despite the fact that so much music covers far less subjects, it was difficult to visualize what I wanted. I almost jokingly made my CD just In Rainbows by Radiohead because of my love for them.

But I consider myself not only a deep person, but I am also self aware of my own dark, depressing personality. I understood that I shouldn’t turn away from my strength, but struggle to improve it.

A theme popped first into my head: movie soundtracks. Yes of course. Here was something I could easily visualize, but also pull for it’s thematic elements I had already experienced. But then I needed to take it one step further. This group of soundtracks needed to have a story. And it not only needed to be universal, but it needed to be deep and enthralling. Finally I decided to combine everything: my dark style, my love for soundtracks, my attempt to create a story, and came up with the idea. I had a lot of work to do.

I wanted to create a story of youth, love, and loss. Not only are these all experienced by everyone, but they are some of the deepest and tragic experiences of our lives. Combine this with movie soundtracks, and combine it with a tragic ending, and magic was being made, at least I hoped. The work however, remained on the computer.



1. Youth

I wanted to make the beginning seem energetic and idealistic, but also sweet, reassuring, and charming. I was reluctant to use lyrical songs, because I wanted a pure, but minimalist approach to allow the listener to immerse themselves in the experience. So how to start the CD? I knew eventually that everything begins with either a literal or metaphorical dance. And what better way to describe youth and a beginning with a waltz. The first song, Bethena, is from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and is played throughout the movie. Right off the bat I wanted my listener to know that this song would foreshadow something doomed, but also convey a beautiful feeling of energy. There is a glory in the notes that you hear from the waltz, and it’s young, and it’s exciting. The musicals, the football games, the prom, and the idea of a utopia. It is these feelings that make senior year of high school so grand and exciting. There is so much that has been crossed, but so much more to see. I picture a beautiful woman, and a charming man, under soft floodlights, the piano softly playing. There’s the woman, in Victorian, with the man in a suit, but a suit that shows off his thin tall legs. The line runs perfectly as he one-two-threes with her across a limitless plane of possibility.

But there is a darkness to it, make no mistake about that. With change, comes the good and the bad. It is part of growing up, and now you find yourself alone, without anyone to call your own. But you’re optimistic, even after the sobs in the bed.

2. Idealistic Love

The next song I needed should not only have been still idealistic in love as an emotion, but also convey some somber feeling of the past, and display hope of the future. I found that song in As Time Goes By from the classic Casablanca. The movie is so iconic of western love and in the movie Humphrey Bogart cannot be with the woman she loves, because of the external pressures that force a higher cause. In the song, it conveys the idea of love from a classic romance movie that is hailed as the greatest ever made. It also applies the thought of somber feeling from the plot of the movie, and it also nails the idea of love as eternal. As time goes by, you will find love again. “A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.”

3. Optimistic Enlightenment

I needed a hurtful, almost unabashed, opaque look at love. It needed to be pure and desired truly. It needed to be simple, but astounding. I continued the idea of love with I Found a Reason straight from V’s jukebox in V for Vendetta. Anyone who’s seen the movie knows that when they dance to it, there’s a complete mental and emotional blockade of the outside world and the anticipation that comes with the next scenes. Eve wants the man, and not the idea. The idea has become so humanized that it hurts for her to accept that V is part of a world that must end that night. And although Eve understands the cost, she is still traumatized and broken down with the death of her man, but the eternity of his idea lives on.

4. A Spark

At long last it was time to commit. The song needed to instigate a love that was personified. It would present the listener with the love of their life. Although it would not continue fully in the song, it would at least establish a human counterpart that is recognizable, and highly desirable. A Whisper of a Thrill from the movie Meet Joe Black was the answer. Anthony Hopkins is addressing to her daughter the sensual escape that love provides. It’s one of the best monologues in film in my opinion, and it represents a take on love that is hard to find anymore. The daughter soon after encounters Brad Pitt, who is very desirable, but his character feels so attainable. Not a bad thing at all, because Pitt’s character does it with a down to earth feeling that makes him nearly perfect. There is the spark, and it’s up to us to fly towards it.

5. Realization

He or she is the ideal. They are what you have aspired to walk with since those years on the dance floor. I needed a favorite of mine, something so iconic and memorable that it capitalized on the glory of loving someone who truly loved you back. A song that said, “I will never let you go.” Transformation from Beauty and the Beast easily fit the bill. Beast was dying, and Belle was cradling the last inch of his life in her arms. At first, there is a feeling that it is too late, and all hope for both of them is lost. But as soon as the lowest point is reached, we are brought with a huge revival and joy that all is well. The song and movie fit. I have always considered Beauty and the Beast my favorite Disney movie, and from start to finish, this song is the theme of the movie. They are yours, and you are theirs, and once again, there is a dance. Only this time, they are there for good.

6. Ups and Downs

No marriage is easy, and I wanted to provide a sweeping soothing song, but it also needed to feel extremely emotional. It needed a lot of movement to reflect the difficulties of marriage. But at the same time, marriage can be sweet and endearing. Cavalliera Ru from Raging Bull was a less known, but satisfactory response. Raging Bull for those who don’t know was a 1980 movie about boxing. Any and every marriage at one time or another is a boxing match, but I did not want that to be the primary focus. This song has so much emotion in it. I wanted those large high notes and contrasting low notes to exaggerate the “ups and downs” of marriage. The bookends of the song provide a sweet melody however, that continues to reassure us that “love conquers all.”

7. Tragic Loss

Anyone who has seen Up knows why I used Married Life as the turning point of the CD. I needed a way to convey to the listener that the road stopped abruptly. Car accidents, disease, war, crime, are all things that exist and affect us in terrible ways. I wanted to establish an artificial ending to a marriage that was not quite complete. And while the couple in Up had a finished scrapbook, there was very little there for this story. It ended harshly, and it ended horribly. It does happen, and it happens often.


8. Why does She have to Die?

In my movie favorites, the loss that is most memorable to me is accompanied with the song Why Does She Have to Die? in Finding Neverland. Everybody asks why. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why are we here? Why did she have to die? And the most truthful answer is Johnny Depp’s “I don’t know.” Kate Winslet’s character, a beautiful vibrant woman was cut down by disease despite the fact that everyone adored her and loved her deeply. Peter is left with confusion as this is his other parent, leaving him and the other Davies’ alone. And once again, although the human is lost, the idea is still there. “She is on every page of your imagination.”

9. Comatose

You can’t work, you can’t sleep, and you can’t eat. The indention on the other side of your bed is no longer there. The calendar has no markings. The refrigerator lacks small love notes magnetized to itself. The nights are long, and the days repeat themselves. You feel nothing. Memories (Someone We’ll Never Know) from the movie Moon with Sam Rockwell is a bit of a stretch, but I think its dissonance and resonance create space. The echo and somber notes create a giant world that fills a speck that is us. But it does very little else with the space. It merely places us there to experience the empty nothing of highly regrettable loss.

10. Condolences

Funeral arrangements. Flowers. Black. You wish there was more you could do, but there would have never been enough. For now, Song for Bob from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is the song that provides a yearning for the lost. It stretches emotion but it’s western style gives it a rural alienating feeling. The repetition of the melody is an attempt to bring them back, failing each time. I wanted this to be an official “beginning of the end” segment of the CD. I wanted the listener to understand that there was no going back, and you cannot change the past.

11. Weight

Gortoz a Ran from Blackhawk Down provided a weight to loss that I fail to write in words. Comrades lost in battle is always a feeling that only they can understand. Those men will always be heroes, but it still does not take away from the heaviness that we all feel from lost men and women. A foreign language really provided a misunderstanding and hopeless tone that I really liked and respected.



12. Anger

Nothing. And it’s killing you. The Immolation Scene from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is horrifying to listen to and melancholy to say the least. I wanted a frustrating feeling of despair and loss. I wanted broken wine glasses and stained walls from an all out destruction of will and hope. The burning alive and suffering of Anakin Skywalker leaves a chilling feeling down your spine. Everything that Anakin fought for, everything he thought he stood for was ripped from him and destroyed that day. And he burned for it. His loss of humanity nearly cost him his life. But it was worse. He had to live to become deformed. He had to be fitted into a protective suit. He had to hear of his wife’s death, by his hand. He forever after filled his heart with hate and despair. There was nothing now to alleviate his loss. The loss changed him. “He’s more machine now, than man. Twisted…and evil.”

13. The Relinquished Idea

I couldn’t help but utilize the song played from my favorite scene in my favorite movie The Good Shepherd. The song is Silouans Song and it brings out the theme of that movie which to me is the loss of humanity. A man who has had an idea of how life is lived, and slowly and surely that idea is ripped from him until he is so heartless he burns a note from his deceased father without hesitation. He tangentially murders his son’s bride, he refuses to love his wife, he is friendless and completely alone. A man or woman is truly destroyed when even the idea they once had of their future is destroyed. Everyone who has ever grown up knows of the realities of life. They always seem to hit us like a freight train. I thought I would never give up those ideas I once held so close to myself.

14. Life Passes us By

The final song is The Last Man from the movie, The Fountain. I had two choices for the ending song, both in this movie. The other was a rhythmic but intense song of enlightenment, but I did not want that ending. I wanted this song, and I could not understand why. By all accounts, the last song should’ve been Death is the Road to Awe but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was something so deceiving in the idea of enlightenment at such an older age. Life, to me, ends in a whimper. Retirement, grandchildren, dry skin, brittle bones. Life fades, it doesn’t collapse. I wanted a feeling of slow decay, and slow realization that life is moving on without us. There will be years upon years, and we will not be there. Our legacy will not even be uttered. I will not be remembered as a writer or even as a teacher. I might for a generation or two, but hundreds of years will take its toll. There is a somber and terrible feeling of how fleeting life can be. And as depressing as that sounds I wanted it to end this way. I wanted to bring the listener up, slam them down, and leave them rebounding in free fall until the end.

I do apologize for such an explanation, but I wanted an answer to what you are listening to and why I chose what I did. I hope you enjoy something I had a lot of fun doing.


To those reading this in a note or on my blog, this is what I taped to every CD to explain it at the party. I'm sorry to those that don't get to hear these songs. Try using Groove Shark, or Playlist.com if you're really interested, but I'm posting this just to keep track of it.