Memories & Nostalgia in Cassette: The Best Gift I Ever Recieved Olivia Ho
The summer before I left for college, my older sister surprised me with a cassette tape and player. I, a product of my generation, couldn’t figure out how to remove the tape from its clear plastic case, much less play it in my boxy black Walkman. She and my parents (very unhelpfully) watched and laughed while I popped open the case, put the tape in the player, fumbled with the buttons on the side, and eventually heard the first scratchy notes begin to play. The Walkman and tape—the songs picked by my sister and mixed by someone she found online—is perhaps the best gift I’ve ever received. Somehow, she managed to find exactly the right combination of songs that would remind me of everything I’d be leaving behind as I left for school: my parents, my childhood, the friends I made growing up. Falling asleep in the passenger seat of my mom’s car as the stereo softly murmured in the background. Each of the songs she chose held specific and tangible memories, yet the story she managed to craft through this tape couldn’t be told without considering the order. The A side—which includes eclectic selections from Simon & Garfunkel and the Spirited Away soundtrack—is a lullaby. In the middle of the set is “Edelweiss,” from The Sound of Music. I’d almost forgotten about this song, but it seemed to have been living in the back of my mind for a long time. As I listened to the tape for the first time, I recalled faint memories of being woken up to my dad’s voice singing: “Edelweiss, Edelweiss / every morning you greet me / small and white, clean and bright / you look happy to meet me.” The B side is freer and more nostalgic, opening with the Cranberries and flowing through the Crash Test Dummies and Carole King. These songs are what my parents listened to when they were our age: young and more uncertain, figuring out how to be adults. The Indigo Girls’ “Closer To Fine,” the third song on the tracklist, particularly struck me. I can so clearly envision my mom singing along, newly graduated from college, having spent—as I am now spending—“four years prostrate to the higher mind.” Listening to this side changes the meaning of the tape. Where the A side made me reflect on what my life used to be like, the B side made me consider what my life could be.
Photo: Isaac Crown-Manesis NF011 | 9
The B side closes with “Enterlude”—a fifty-second track that introduces the Killer’s sophomore
