Mr Mascellani's Musings

Songs of Summery Serendipity and Post Vacation Despair

An activity that I find pleasurable and
painful is making compilation music
tapes and CDs for individual friends.

The way I do it is something like this:

Ok, this song should be first, no this
one, hmmm perhaps this one, no it
should be that one.

I pick a first song and then it’s- Ok
that song should be followed by this
song, no it shouldn’t, some other song
would be better. Which one? This one?
No. That one. No. How about this one?

After few hours (some times days) I have
songs one and two down.

I’ll be going along my merry way and get
to song number 7 and think,Hmmm,perhaps
this CD would be better if song number 7
was song number 1 followed by song
number 4 which would make it song
number 2.

How should I handle the transitions-
i.e. from “suicidal angst depressive”
songs to “happy” songs; from ‘Punk’
to ‘Jazz’ to ‘Classical’, from Hillbilly
Bluegrass to German post industrial
noise- when should those transitions
be abruptand when should they be
gradual? Maybe I should put in some
spoken word at this point- perhaps
Plath or D. Thomas reading one
their poems. Maybe I should start
the CD with Plath reading “Leaving
Early” and follow it with Massappeal’s
hardcore punk song “Rat in a Hole”
then maybe some Bad Brains followed
by the dub poetry of L. Kwesiei Johnson,
then some Ska, then some 70’s punk
and some more poetry, maybe something
by John Cooper Clarke, then some
Madonna followed by some Tokyo/
New York jazz-thrash metal fusion-
no maybe something from Stravinky’s
“Rites of Spring” followed by the “Lost
in Space” theme, Followed by The Dickies’
cover of the Banana Splits song. What
next? Dean Martin? Sinatra? The Three
Tenors singing O Sole Mio?

Let me listen to what I’ve got down so
far.No, some of the transitions from song
type to differing type are too abrupt- this
song shouldn’t be followed by that song;
there should be some sort of instrumental
followed by some poetry- maybe both-
maybe something fromKerouac reading
from “On The Road” with the piano
accompaniment.


And when I’ve got it right, then there’s the
struggle about what to call the CD,and the
cover art.

“Hmmm, I think I’ll call this one:
“Songs of Summery Serendipity and
Post Vacation Despair” and the cover
art will be of Gumby commiting hari-kari.
No it should be….