Mix tapes are as an important part of our marriage as Pittsburgh sports, restaurant sampling, and travel, and they have been ever since the beginning. I’d have to say it goes as far back as our second or third date, when Michael made a mix playlist on his computer of a bunch of David Bowie songs to play for me so he could sneak in the song “Be My Wife” without seeming like he was coming on too strong in the first week of the relationship 🙂
We have tied the mix tapes in with travel, and it becomes a lengthy process to mold the perfect mix tapes for the specific trip (oh, there are always overlaps on songs between the playlists, but only after we have come up with significant reasons as to why a song could be fitting for both wine country and Arizona). Since we knew we were doing two big trips in 2010, we decided to create playlists for each one.
For California, we knew we would be driving down the coast, so we needed several hours worth of music. I made three discs to take on our trip, each with a different theme.
Disc One was titled The West Coast, a mix of all California songs, or songs with California flavor (“Boys of Summer” just makes you feel like you’re in Santa Monica at sundown the same way that nothing ever feels as good as “Take It Easy” when you’re heading up the 101 for a weekend in Central Coast).
Disc Two was Heat Wave, which was filled with any song that would sound fantastic if you were driving a convertible down the coast just as night fell on a cool summer night.
And Disc Three was Dance, simply just songs that make me want to dance. A lot.
Our NYC trip had a different feel to it, and we kept referring to it as our ‘Carrie Bradshaw trip’ (well, I did, and Michael just smiled ;). So when I made the mix tape, I tried to keep in mind songs that made me think of Sex and the City, or anything Carrie-themed in general.
I called this The Carrie List, and I kept it as a playlist on my IPod, since we were traveling by train and didn’t really have access to a stereo like we did in California.