What were the skies like when you were young?

UPDATED 5/22/11: Join me as I move beyond the theoretical! If you’d like to subscribe to my annual mixtape series, or request a cassette copy of this year’s mix with no further obligations or appeals to membership, send an email to gstueven@gmail.com with a succinct description of your childhood skies in the subject line. Since too many great songs merited inclusion this year, each cassette will come with a download link for newly added Side 3. If either Side A or Side B is not up to your standard, a simple Side 3 overdub, easily effected on any cassette player with recording capability, will make this a mix that can’t lose! Please note that each cassette will include personalized cover art—based on my limited knowledge of the recipient’s morals and interests—in place of the image seen below. Please also note that I make no guarantee of timely delivery. But take comfort in the knowledge that the beauty of these 33 songs is in no immediate danger of expiration. Lastly, follow me here, where I'll explicate the relevance of each song (maybe).

Here, on this day of amazing sky, it feels appropriate to unveil this year’s springtime mixtape, still only theoretical and therefore open to revision, but soon to take on a form as physical as the imminently softening outside world.

A

The Aislers Set – “Chicago New York” [2.23]
Veronica Falls – “Stephen” [2.26]
R.E.M. – “Every Day Is Yours To Win” [3.26]
The Geraldine Fibbers – “Swim Back To Me” [3.25]
Pale Saints – “Babymaker” [3.26]
Little Black Dress – “Robin” [4.09]
Minks – “Kusmi” [2.47]
Julianna Barwick – “Vow” [4.39]
Weekend – “Youth Haunts” [5.33]
Suede – “The Wild Ones” [4.51]
Patrick Wolf – “The City” [4.15]
.....total [41.20]

B

Jeremy Jay – “Shayla” [2.50]
The Chills – “Double Summer” [3.14]
Crystal Stilts – “Silver Sun” [3.03]
Lower Dens – “Tea Lights” [4.40]
Kurt Vile – “On Tour” [5.26]
Michael Jackson – “I Can’t Help It” [4.29]
Twin Shadow – “At My Heels” [3.37]
Stereolab – “Wow & Flutter” [3.08]
The Secret History – “My Life With The Living Dead” [3.51]
The Amps – “Bragging Party” [4.32]
The Orb – “Little Fluffy Clouds” [4.27]
.....total [43.17]

3

Tennis – “Long Boat Pass” [2.59]
Twin Sister – “Lady Daydream” [3.22]
Iris DeMent – “Hotter Than Mojave In My Heart” [2.33]
Patti Smith – “Kimberly” [4.29]
The Dictators – “Weekend” [4.02]
Lilys – “The Hermit Crab” [3.33]
Simple Minds – “Big Sleep” [5.03]
Robyn – “Call Your Girlfriend” [3.47]
Grace Jones – “Walking in the Rain” [4.30]
The Wipers – “Wait A Minute” [3.04]
Women – “Eyesore” [6.25]
.....total [43.47]


The featured songs from the 1990s are my response to the title question, originally posed to Rickie Lee Jones. I’ve included her answer, concerning little fluffy clouds and Arizona skies that go on forever, as well, in the hopes of a double summer—one in syrupy Minneapolis, and a later, drier, autumnal one under her childhood skies.

If I had to narrow my childhood dreamings of an expansive radness in the great elsewhere down to one person, then there was no one cooler than Kim Deal, so her own “Dedicated” "Bragging Party" dedicates this mix to her. Supposedly I get to see her tonight, which is insane.

Original tracklist is in the comments for this post.