Got your tape and it changed my mind

Mixtape Challenge: Chelsea






Okay, Claudia stole "A Case of You," but I bartered with her for this first one:

• Jeff Buckley "Lover, You Should Have Come Over" (1994)

This song breathes sex. The whole album is liquid love, but this song in particular just drives it home. The thing is, though, that the lyrics are also poignant and haunting. I know that word gets used a lot to describe Buckley, but come on, folks. I have to thank Claud for introducing me to this song during college. I know I've fallen asleep to it 1000 times.

It's never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder

It's never over, all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her

It's never over, all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter

It's never over, she's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

• Jim Croce "Had to Say I Love You in a Song" (1974)
  

Any long-haired man or woman from the 70s with an acoustic guitar is always going to have a special place in my heart. I blame this on my parents. I've been listening to Jim Croce since the cradle, and this might not even be my favorite song of his, but it's just stunning in its simplicity and honesty. Here's a guy who can't get the words out to tell his beloved how he feels, so he wakes her up in the middle of the night to sing her a song he wrote. And it's A FORKING TRUE STORY!! Croce really wrote that song for his wife and woke her up with with it! And then it wasn't released until after he had died in that plane crash. Can you imagine being her? Jeezum. Anyway, it's perfect.

Every time the time was right all the words just came out wrong

So I'll have to say 'I love you' in a song.

• Frances Cabrel "Je t'aimais, je t'aime, je t'aimerai" (1995)
  

I think Andrew West is actually the one we can thank for putting this on a French CD he made for us after we all got back from Nova Scotia after my second summer at French camp, the summer I turned 17. The lyrics just make the heart ACHE, y'all. I know they're in French, but it's worth your time to look up a translation, believe me. The love story is epic! The title translates to "I have loved you, I love you, I will love you" (not "I love the door, I love the floor, I love you" as Jenny Byrd once believed). We all used to say we'd have this played at our weddings, but Claud's the only one of us who's actually had one of those and she totally fell down on the job.

Mais quoi que tu fasses / L'amour est partout ou tu regardes

Dans les moindres recoins de l'espace / Dans les moindre rêve où tu t'attardes

(But whatever you do / Love is everywhere you look)

(In the tiniest corner of space / In the smallest dream where you linger)

• The Counting Crows "Anna Begins" (1993)
  

I have loved me some Counting Crows since the 6th grade. I have to thank Katy Allgood, wherever she may be, for introducing me to them during a lip-syncing contest at her slumber party that year. And Lauren has a point that Adam Duritz is the sexiest ugly man alive. On a somber note, I have seen the Crows live twice, and they have never played this song. But it's everyone favorite! It's about falling in love way too fast, and realizing it's happening, and freaking out a whole lot, but staying in it because something in your brain says this. is. it. So thanks, Adam. Before I really knew about anything, you taught me about true love.

Every time she sneezes, I believe it's love

And oh Lord, I'm not ready for this kind of thing

• Billy Joel "She's Always a Woman" (1977)
  

This is, again, going back to my childhood years. My dad is a HUGE Billy Joel fan. It's hard to pick one Joel song about love that's better than the others, but I have always had a huge affinity for this one. It's kinda trite, it's kinda played out, but you know what, I still wish that someone could look at me with all my faults and all my insecurities and all my complex attributes and say, "Fuck it. I love her anyway." My best friend in high school, Gregory, used to play this on the piano and my heart would melt.

She can ruin your faith with her casual lies

And she only reveals what she wants you to see

She hides like a child

But she's always a woman to me

Runners up include

• "Elevator Love Letter" by Stars
  
• "You're the Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me" by Ray LaMontagne
• "Feels Like Home" by Chantal Kreviazuk
• "Strangers in a Car" by Marc Cohn (which I put on EVERY SINGLE mix CD I made in high school and college. You girls remember that.)