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4f4308b
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It's the same with people who say, 'Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn't kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you incredibly annoying.
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pain
love
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Rob Sheffield |
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be5faf8
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When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.
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music
songs
remember
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Rob Sheffield |
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b5d1c4c
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The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with -- nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.
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music
nostalgia
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Rob Sheffield |
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0a42a31
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Our lives were just beginning, our favorite moment was right now, our favorite songs were unwritten.
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youth
music
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Rob Sheffield |
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3ba0e50
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It's always that one song that gets to you. You can hide, but the song comes to find you.
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Rob Sheffield |
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faf2325
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There are all kinds of mix tapes. there is always a reason to make one.
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Rob Sheffield |
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5df84ec
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I'd shut the whole world down just to tell you
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Rob Sheffield |
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6f2ea47
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Tonight, I feel like my whole body is made out of memories. I'm a mix-tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape.
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Rob Sheffield |
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31a2d32
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I was helpless in trying to return people's kindness, but also helpless to resist it. Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure. Cruelty isn't that hard to understand. I had no trouble comprehending why the phone company wanted to screw me over; they just wanted to steal some money, it was nothing personal. That's the way of the world. It made me mad, but it didn't make me feel stupid. If anything, it flattered my intelligen..
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grief
kindness
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Rob Sheffield |
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1c7c5f8
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I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language.
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Rob Sheffield |
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0c9f909
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I realize that I will never fully understand the millions of bizarre ways that music brings people together.
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Rob Sheffield |
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b87a93b
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I get sentimental over the music of the '90s. Deplorable, really. But I love it all. As far as I'm concerned the '90s was the best era for music ever, even the stuff that I loathed at the time, even the stuff that gave me stomach cramps.
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nostalgia
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Rob Sheffield |
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68c0bd3
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But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.
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Rob Sheffield |
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0ea28d1
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My sisters were the coolest people I knew, and still are. I have always aspired to be like them and know what they know. My sisters were the color and noise in my black-and-white boy world-how I pitied my friends who had brothers. Boys seemed incredibly tedious and dim compared to my sisters, who were always a rush of energy and excitement, buzzing over all the books, records, jokes, rumors and ideas we were discovering together. I grew up ..
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Rob Sheffield |
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3218e73
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Love dies in many different ways, and it's natural for the grass to seem greener on the other side. But it's not a competition; there's plenty of pain to go around.
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Rob Sheffield |
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5d89b4d
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The dilemma of the eighth-grade dance is that boys and girls use music in different ways. Girls enjoy music they can dance to, music with strong vocals and catchy melodies. Boys, on the other hand, enjoy music they can improve by making up filthy new lyrics.
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music
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Rob Sheffield |
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4520e66
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Nothing connects to the moment like music. I count the music to bring me back, or more precisely, to bring her forward.
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Rob Sheffield |
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5e0f65a
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For two weeks, I lay awake at night and said Hail Marys over and over to stop my heart from beating too fast. I suddenly realized how much being a husband was about fear: fear of not being able to keep somebody safe, of not being able to protect somebody from all the bad stuff you want to protect them from. Knowing they have more tears in them than you will be able to keep them from crying. I realized that Renee had seen me fail, and that s..
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Rob Sheffield |
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48c38ec
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I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language. Without her to talk to, there was nothing to say.
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Rob Sheffield |
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3b983c9
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One of Renee's friends asked her, "Does your boyfriend wear glasses?" She said, "No, he wears a Walkman."
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music
humor
love
music-lover
walkman
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Rob Sheffield |
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8ae705a
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Girls take up a lot of room. I had a lot of room for this one.
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Rob Sheffield |
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d058245
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But for me, if we're talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This has nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That's part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it's full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared t..
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Rob Sheffield |
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b759c85
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Sometimes great tunes happen to bad times, and when the bad time is over, not all the tunes get to move on with you.
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Rob Sheffield |
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6ee6f2d
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I didn't know what I was. I didn't have a noun.
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Rob Sheffield |
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fa686c7
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The way I pictured it, all this grief would be like a winter night when you're standing outside. You'll warm up once you get used to the cold. Except after you've been out there for awhile, you feel the warmth draining out of you and you realize the opposite is happening; you're getting colder and colder, as the body heat you brought outside with you seeps out of your skin. Instead of getting used to it, you get weaker the longer you endure..
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Rob Sheffield |
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a62b983
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It was bewildering and humbling to keep discovering how many brave things people can fail to talk themselves out of doing.
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Rob Sheffield |
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bdd4b13
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The hungry feeling and the lonely feeling merged until it was hard to tell them apart.
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Rob Sheffield |
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38adb88
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some people aren't worth the trouble of being kind to, because they have neither the brains nor the power to make something for themselves out of your kindness.
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Rob Sheffield |
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35d2a77
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on the 11th of every month my friend elizabeth would say, "well we made it through another month. so do we get her back now?" we always giggled, but we really did expect to get her back. its not human to let go of love, even when it's dead. we expected one of these monthly anniversaries to be the Final Goodbye. we figured that we'd said all our goodbyes, and given up all the tears we had to give. we'd passed the test and would get back what..
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Rob Sheffield |
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ba23804
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Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of life.
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Rob Sheffield |
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501fdd9
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But bringing people together is what music has always done best.
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Rob Sheffield |
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6ba344d
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What doesn't kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you incredibly annoying
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Rob Sheffield |
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b3ddb7e
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A song nobody likes is a sad thing. But a love song nobody likes is hardly a thing at all.
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music
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Rob Sheffield |
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70a3567
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You know the Prince song where the girl's phone rings but she tells him, "whoever's calling couldn't be as cute as you?" I long to live out this moment in real life."
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song-lyrics
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Rob Sheffield |
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4650141
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What is love? Great minds have been grappling with this question through the ages, and in the modern era, they have come up with many different answers. According to the Western philosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan Frank Sinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. The stoner kids who spent the summer of 1978 looking cool on the hoods of their Trans Ams in the Pierce Elementary School parking lot used to..
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Rob Sheffield |
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24b08d4
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bitch power is the juice, the sweat, the blood that keeps pop music going. Rick James helped me understand the lesson of the eighth-grade dance: Bitch power rules the world. If the girls don't like the music, they sit down and stop the show. You gotta have a crowd if you wanna have a show. And the girls are the show. We're talking absolute monarchy, with no rules of succession. Bitch power. She must be obeyed. She must be feared.
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women
music
rick-james
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Rob Sheffield |
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e5ddd52
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If the girls keep dancing, everybody's happy. If the girls don't dance, nobody's happy.
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Rob Sheffield |
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d3ee0ee
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Falling in love with Renee was not the kind of thing you walk away from in one piece. I had no chance. She put a hitch in my git-a-long.
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Rob Sheffield |
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690bfc5
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She was the first person on either side of her family to go to college, and she held herself to insanely high standards. She worried a lot about whether she was good enough. It was surprising to see how relieved she seemed whenever I told her how amazing she was. I wanted her to feel strong and free. She was beautiful when she was free.
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Rob Sheffield |
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a06a977
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It was like trying to break up with the color orange, or Wednesday, or silent e. It was the most passionate and tumultuous relationship I'd ever known.
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Rob Sheffield |
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91f8560
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I thought, there is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment... There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this road, listening to this song. If she breaks my heart, no matter what hell she puts me through, I can say it was worth it, just because of right now. Out the window is a blur and all I can really hear is this girl's hair flapping in the wind, and maybe if we..
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Rob Sheffield |
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3168fd7
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I thought, There is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment. I could count all the places I would not rather be. I've always wanted to see New Zealand, but I'd rather be here. The majestic ruins of Machu Picchu? I'd rather be here. A hillside in Cuenca, Spain, sipping coffee and watching leaves fall? Not even close. There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this ro..
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Rob Sheffield |
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4630a9b
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Somtimes you lie in a strange room, in a strange person's home, and you feel yourself bending out of shape. Melting, touching something hot, something that warps you in drastic and probably irreversible ways you won't get to take stock of until its too late
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Rob Sheffield |
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fc0762c
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Not being able to protect her from things was the most frightening thing I'd ever felt, and it kicked in as soon as we got together. With every year we spent together, I became more conscious that I now had an infinitely expanding number of reasons to be afraid. I had something to lose.
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Rob Sheffield |