I have already written up the week I spent “training” to go to Keele:
At some point during that week, I will have made up a mix tape of current popular music.
In less frenetic times, I would record the odd song or two or a few, while listening to the chart show every few weeks. These were frenetic times, though. I had just finished working for BBYO all summer (living in at Hillel House most of the time) and was soon to go off to Keele University.
So I recorded quite a lot of stuff from the radio during those few days off. Initially, that would have been recorded onto the Sony TC-377 reel-to-reel tape recorder (see photo above). But as I knew I planned only have a cassette player with me at Keele, I then copied said recordings onto a cassette.
Quite laborious stuff.
Here is the list of recordings I made at that time:
- Masterblaster Jamming, Stevie Wonder
- I Die You Die, Gary Numan
- Don’t Stand So Close, The Police
- Don’t Lose Your Temper, XTC
- Best Friend, The Beat
- I Wanna Be Straight, Ian Dury and the Blockheads
- Baggy Trousers, Madness
- Give Me the Night, George Benson
- Searchin’, Change
- Oops Upside Your Head, Gap Band
- Tom Hark, The Piranhas
- Eighth Day, Hazel O’Connor
- Feels Like I’m In Love, Kelly Marie
- One Day I’ll Fly Away, Randy Crawford
- What You’re Proposing, Status Quo
- Stereotype, The Specials
- Misunderstanding, Genesis
- Fallout, Data
- Fashion, David Bowie
- Army Dreamers, Kate Bush
- Mad At You, Joe Jackson
- All Out of Love, Air Supply
- I Got You, Split Enzz
- Another One Bites the Dust, Queen
- Amigo, Black Slate
- Disco, Ottawan
In truth, I wouldn’t be choosing many of these for my Desert Island iPod now. I can try the slightly lame excuses that I hadn’t really been paying that much attention to the chart music that late summer/early autumn and that I will have made up this tape in a bit of a rush, possibly with more willingness to pad out the tape than usual.
Anyway, to the extent that I am able, below are links to public domain versions of each of the above, so you can decide for yourselves, if you can be bothered. In any case, I’m sure some readers will be curious enough to want to listen to some of the recordings.
The play list starts brilliantly…and ends.
Gosh, that was quicker and easier than making up a mix tape, by a long, long chalk.