As I’ve been awfully bad at updating this old blog of mine for the past couple weeks I’ve decided to start a new kind of weekly post, a mixtape not dedicated to showcasing new artists all the time, but getting back to the roots of what a mixtape meant, which is to hold a theme through a variety of different artists and songs. This inaugural mixtape theme is Escape.
The feeling of escape in music is one of the strongest themes in rock and roll, we find ourselves transfixed by the places it can bring us to, the painful emotions it can mute, the happy emotions it can bring out in sad times. This mix doesn’t count on containing unknown songs by artists you’ll hopefully like, rather I composed it to enhance the feeling, to get lost in the world of music and somehow through it all the songs meshed together perfectly, as if the order was supposed to be this way.
- Born to Run- Bruce Springsteen
One of the most perfect escaping anthems ever put on paper, Bruce Springsteen was writing more than just a song when Born to Run came to be. He had been the unknown maverick, a little known musician compared to the likes of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison in his poetry and story telling but had yet to find his sound. But from the snare intro till the end, this song provides the escape he needed to make it big, and the escape of the American Dream that’s in all of us
- Son of a Preacherman- Dusty Springfield
From the beginning the guitar transfixes you, her voice takes you away
- September- Earth, Wind, and Fire
Sometimes escape isn’t always about going somewhere but about remembering the good times, and September is just that a remembrance of good times you had
- Midnight Train to Georgia- Gladys Knight and the Pips
Because dreams don’t always come true, but sometimes its just making the effort that makes it all worthwhile
- Friend of the Devil- Grateful Dead
For the literal escape from our lives (if you’re a criminal)
- Tighter, Tighter- Alive N’ Kickin
For the escape that love can provide, even when its done by a bond that brings people closer
- Octopus’s Garden- The Beatles
No matter how many years have passed by, this song will always bring you back to the innocence of your childhood and how you can take comfort in your imagination
- Take the Money and Run- Steve Miller Band
For even if you do something bad once in a while, live a little, just live in the moment and have fun
- Hungry Heart- Bruce Springsteen
Sometimes you just want to take that wrong turn out of your driveway forget it all and never come back, it’s the essence of youth, the young and the restless
- Strawberry Fields Forever – The Beatles
For escaping the barriers of your own perception
- Let’s Take the Long Way Home- The Beautiful Girls
Sometimes the quickest way is not the most satisfying, theres always the road untaken waiting for you, when the time comes
- Bet You Never Thought- Brighton, MA
Because sometimes it isn’t what you’d think, Life especially
- Rebel Rebel- David Bowie
For the inner rebel in all of us
- Romeo and Juliet- Dire Straits
Some songs in their stories become almost surreal in how real they feel, how you identify with the characters and the beauty within
- Fables- The Dodos
The story isn’t just in the words, but in the music that surrounds it as well
- All She Wants- The Kooks
When an artist covers another, it gets deeper because it shows where they escape to, outside of their own music, and what really influences them
- Heart it Races- Dr. Dog
Another escape, a mental journey expressed as physical
- Castles Made of Sand- Jimi Hendrix
Because no matter how great the escape, everything is fleeting
- Simple Twist of Fate- Bob Dylan
Because the change you want, the escape you long for, is sometimes just up to fate
- A Change is Gonna Come- Sam Cooke
Because the message is so powerful, and the voice just carries over everything, it’s no longer an escape, it’s an escape realized
The Art of the Mixtape 