Kerry Says

Back in high school (the day as it is oft’ referred) my friend’s uncle used to make her mixed tapes.

Now this was not your “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll” lovin’, Molson drinkin’ uncle. This was the only slightly older uncle, the one who was away at university, and lived with his girlfriend, and drank Heineken. This was a cool uncle.

Anyway the tapes… He used to send her collections of songs from time to time in an attempt to wean her off the sugary pop tunes that made her, and all her friends, waste our meager allowances and fill our brains with lyrics like: “I spend my money on lottery, My favourite number is 1 2 3”. (Thank you Calloway)

His tapes were full of songs by Joy Division and the Smiths and the HouseMartins.

I loved these tapes.

Now I can’t tell you I loved them because of the music. At the time, I knew very little about music and had, at 15, only just concluded (thanks my brother’s constant derision and numerous forced listening sessions of Led Zeplin IV) that the New Kids on the Block really did SUCK no matter what all my friends and Much Music seemed to think.

Instead, I loved them for their cases full of cramped male handwriting, because they came by post from the big(er) city, because listening to the music of grown-ups made me feel grown up (because at 15 I thought 21 was grown up.)

Listening to these tapes made me feel like a little kid staying up at the end of a dinner party when the adults start talking about politics, or neighbourhood gossip or other topics they wouldn’t usually speak of in front of the kids. I was mesmerized by the dark lyrics, the angry guitars, and melancholy. I felt myself getting wise listening to those tapes. I felt myself getting older.

There was one tape in particular I remember. I think it was the first one I liked for the music, not the idea of the music. Some of the songs I heard for the first time on that tape are still my favourites today. I can’t remember all of them. (These weren’t the cheezy 60 minute tapes you know. These were the 90 minute Memorex tapes. These were hardcore) but I do remember a few. Go give ‘em a listen won’t you? You’ll be glad you did.

• Annie Get Your Gun – Squeeze
• Sing Your Life – Morrisey
• Birdhouse in your Soul – They Might Be Giants
• Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division
• The One I Love – REM
• Something That You Said – The Beautiful South