A Grown Up Mix Tape

By Joseph Leftwich - "I’m proud to admit there’s not much more to say than I’m a husband, a dad, and a dog-owning businessman. Not much in there to commend what I’ll stubbornly refer to as my “mixtape”, but stick with me. I love making mixtapes. Always have done. I don’t do it enough and haven’t done for some years. I might not labour over hand-illustrated liner notes the way I used to at school, but… excuses. It’s an art in itself, though, making mixtapes. And though you can pretty much do what you like, there are rules too.

Rule 1. The subject of a mixtape is only ever its compiler, never the recipient.

Rule 2. A mixtape may come to be regarded as a profound work of creative genius, but only ever by its compiler.

Rule 3. Whatever a mixtape compiler believes has exquisitely articulated by seguing Debussy with Herb Alpert’s The Lonely Bull, hasn’t (this hit the cutting room floor, sadly)

Rule 4. Though not unfamiliar with the laws governing the compilation of mixtapes, a compiler is happiest when s/he forgets.

So here’s my Grown-Up Mixtape. Hope you like it.

Sweet Dreams - Roy Buchanan
We’re A Winner - The Impressions
Let’s Take A Walk - Raphael Saadiq
No One’s Gonna Love You - Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators
Variation On A Theme of Me My Friend - Family
Do The Pony - Shiva Burlesque
Summer Wind - Frank Sinatra
Betty - Fred Eaglesmith
Scarecrow - Beck
The Monkey - Dave Bartholomew
Pizza and Pinball - Rumer
The Warmth of the Sun - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
Is That All There Is? - Peggy Lee
No Regrets - Tom Rush
3rd Base, Dodger Stadium - Ry Cooder
Remember (Christmas) - Harry Nilsson
The Girl With The Flaxen Hair - Claude Debussy, Various
Alone Again (Naturally) - Gilbert O’Sullivan
Happy People - Dry Spells
Everything Is Broken - Bettye Lavette