Mixtape Reflections: The Ear of the Beholder ~ The 25 Most Beautiful Songs I’ve Ever Heard

 It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When we think of the concept of beauty, we automatically think of visual beauty. But there can be beautiful smells, tastes, sensations, and of course sounds. But what makes a song beautiful? An angelic female voice? Perhaps an instrument like a piano, a violin or a harp? But could something like a song by Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth with screaming, demonic vocals be beautiful? Perhaps, in a way. Perhaps it’s in the ear of the beholder. All I can talk about is what music I find beautiful. It isn’t going to be what other people find beautiful, although there might be some overlap at best.

I decided to put together a mixtape of the songs I consider the most beautiful ones I have ever heard, as of this year at age 35. These are the top 25. They’re certainly not the only songs I consider beautiful, of course. I don’t even consider every song that I like beautiful, per se. A catchy song isn’t the same as a beautiful song, but I can still like it. So this isn’t necessarily a list of my favorite songs, just the ones I find the most beautiful. What do I consider beautiful in a song? Well, they all do have a few things in common. They often but not always have female vocals; Liv Kristine of Theatre of Tragedy, for instance, has what I would consider the most beautiful female singing voice I have heard. For this list I have narrowed down the two most beautiful Theatre of Tragedy songs, in my opinion. There are certainly more though. If I consider a song beautiful and it has a male singer, it is generally due to the instruments and not so much the singing, although there are a few male singers with very beautiful voices, such as Peter Steele of Type O Negative. Most of these songs are slow, not very heavy, not really something you would dance to. And I even put a few guilty pleasures on there, like some love ballads and award-bait songs I’m a sucker for, if I’m in the right mood anyway. But most of all, a song that I really find beautiful usually puts a beautiful image in my head when I hear it. It lets me escape somewhere. It might be a memory of somewhere I have been before, or someplace in my imagination.

I have put together a YouTube playlist so you can follow along. I tried to make them all flow together. Again, as I mentioned in my last mixtape blog, Spotify wouldn’t have all these songs so I am doing the playlists on YouTube from now on. The mix clocks in at an estimated 132 minutes, so to even put it on a two hour blank cassette, the longest they made, will necessitate some cuts, sadly. I haven’t recorded it yet, but I plan to. At least with playlists time isn’t an issue. 

YouTube Playlist

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUzP1Twau7QIP804FAVINriyfpQW0hPmr

Theatre of Tragedy - And When He Falleth

Liv Kristine’s angelic vocals are at their best here, blending well with the piano, and the voice samples from Vincent Price in the film Masque of the Red Death just add to the dark beauty of this song. Although I don’t mind them, the growling male vocals aren’t everybody’s cup of tea, but the rest of the song has more than enough beauty to make up for it. 

Glaare - My Love Grows in Darkness 

I mentioned this song on my most recent Top Songs of the Month blog when speaking about Glaare’s newest album, and said that this was one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard. And I wasn’t kidding. The beautiful vocals and dreamlike music take me on a journey. I feel like I am standing on a cliff along the cold Pacific coast, fog in the fresh salty air, overcast skies, the waves breaking against the rocky coast. The nearby redwood forest is covered in a blanket of mist.  There might be darkness, but there is still love. 

This picture I took in Northern California illustrates it perfectly.

Aurelio Voltaire - Underground (demo version) 

This track is off Voltaire’s previously unreleased Cave Candem album, which featured early demo versions of songs that would later appear on his albums. This song would resurface on his Almost Human album, but it lost something in the process. That version has a bit of melancholy, but sounds downright cheerful compared to the original version. The lyrics, paired with the instrumentation, hold more weight. It feels more genuine, more from the heart. That is true of other songs on Cave Candem, for instance, the more widely-known version of “Ex-Lover’s Lover” is a funny, tongue-in-cheek if slightly morbid song about fantasizing killing your ex-girlfriend’s new lover out of jealousy, but the original, darker version, despite having the same lyrics, sounds like it is being sung by someone who would actually do it. This version of “Underground” similarly feels more genuine. I remember listening to it on my MP3 player when I was hiking in the forested hills around Vanadzor, Armenia, so it always takes me back to that, putting in my mind the vision of tree-covered hills, the tops shrouded in low clouds.

Type O Negative- Haunted

This song continues the energy of the last two songs. Someone put together a fan video of it on YouTube (which you’ll see on the playlist I shared), images of misty forests and a full moon rising in the night, and that’s what goes through my mind when I hear this song. This song is an experience. You don’t just listen to it, you experience it. Only Peter Steele could make the line “I hate the morning” sound utterly beautiful. I don’t even listen to the words really, I just listen to his voice and the music, and it takes me on an adventure. 

The Smashing Pumpkins - Porcelina of the Vast Oceans

This is a song from my childhood. I wrote about the album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness way back in December 2019 when I was talking about the top ten albums that changed my life, and I think if you read that it will give you a sense of why I find this song beautiful. It reminds me of a fantasy world, like Neverland. 

Katil - Kuzim

Again, you need only refer to a blog post I wrote about this very song to understand why it made this list. 

Tigran Hamasyan - The Apple Orchard in Saghmosavank

This song is an instrumental. I got to see pianist Tigran Hamasyan in concert once, and he is very skilled. This song in particular I find to be very emotional. It paints a picture of a beautiful place. An isolated apple orchard somewhere up in the mountains. I have been to Saghmosavank, it’s a medieval church built at the edge of a canyon. It was quite a hike getting there, but the view was worth it, as you can see above. They always built churches in the most beautiful and scenic areas back then. This song brings me back there.

 

Serj Tankian - Garuna

Originally an old Armenian folk song that was preserved by Komitas Vartapet, this song has many beautiful renditions. I chose this one in particular because, like many of the songs on this list, I associate it with a memory. It was my last day in Armenia, and I chose to spend it by visiting the ancient ruins of Erebuni one last time. Erebuni is a fortress built by the Kingdom of Urartu in the 780s BC. I wish I had a picture of the view of Yerevan from Erebuni to share but I don’t. But I remember standing there, looking at that view, and tearing up because I knew I was leaving, and I didn’t know when I was ever coming back. 

Theatre of Tragedy - ... a distance there is...

This is a song carried purely by Liv Kristine’s voice. The only other sounds are a piano and thunder in the distance. Thunder is always beautiful in my opinion. I picture a foggy field like the one above (taken in Shushi, Artsakh...sigh let’s not get on that subject), the song being sung by a beautiful Goddess dressed in a white shroud. This song is probably the most beautiful Theatre of Tragedy song. It is so pure. 

Kamelot - On the Coldest Winter Night

Another subdued song by a metal band, this one is only vocals and orchestration, no drums or guitars, of which the piano is most dominant. It’s a song that makes me think about cuddling warmly in front of a fire under a blanket with your loved one on the coldest winter night, ice and snow outside. What’s funny is that since I’ve only ever lived in California and Florida I’ve never actually been in that situation. But I imagine it’s nice. 

Journey - Open Arms

Guilty pleasure section! Well alright, I don’t really mind saying I like Journey, in general. But this is their slowest love ballad. Not my usual type of music. Still, you can’t help but get goosebumps listening to it. It sounds like love, that’s the best way I can describe it. There are a lot of beautiful Journey songs, this is just one of them.

Phillip Glasser - Somewhere Out There

The film An American Tail has held special significance to me since childhood. And this is a beautiful song. The version on this mix is the best version in my opinion, from an obscure promotional album. I never really liked the Linda Ronstadt version that became popular on the radio, only due to the vocals. The instrumentation is fine though. This takes the instrumentation from the Linda Ronstadt version and includes the vocals of Phillip Glasser, who voiced Fievel in the film. The only flaw is that it’s just him, while the song is designed to be a duet. Still the best version in my opinion. 

Florence Warner Jones - Once Upon a Time With Me

This is a song from the little-known animated film Once Upon a Forest. Another childhood favorite of mine. I would have never admitted as a kid that this song gave me the feels, but it did, and still does. It’s a song about looking back on your life and remembering cherished memories of childhood, which strangely I understood as a child. And yes, it’s an award-bait song. Except it never won any awards because it’s obscure. How sad.

Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

Yes I like this band. It’s because of 90s nostalgia. This song was also on my first mixtape ever, so that also makes it special. This song was popular when I was in Middle School, a very horrible time in my life, and this song got me through some very hard times back then. It’s the stirring string section that gets me. If you listen to it being played acoustically it just doesn’t pack that same punch. It’s that string section that makes the song, making it sound epic and emotional. There was a trend in 90s alternative rock of orchestral string sections being incorporated into the usual guitars and drums (“Tonight, Tonight” by The Smashing Pumpkins, “The World I Know” by Collective Soul, “Numb” by The Cure, plenty of others), that’s another mix for another time. 

Robbie Robb - In Time

This song is from the movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It plays during the scene where Bill and Ted visit the utopian future that their music would eventually create. And this song definitely suits a future utopia. I purposely chose a version with a guitar solo at the beginning because it makes the song sound even better. It isn’t the version that appears on the soundtrack. I was really hoping they would bring this song back for the third movie that came out recently but sadly they did not. 

I wish I were blissfully ignorant enough to believe that in time everything would be alright with the world when it seems like everything’s spiraling toward disaster, but I’m a cynic and borderline nihilist. When I listen to this song though, I do feel like an optimist, if only momentarily. Well, maybe “in time” means centuries from now. That’s reasonable enough. 

Ministry - Game Over

Yes, Ministry made this list. Early synthpop Ministry, of course. Though I’m sure “NWO” and “Jesus Built My Hotrod” have their own sort of beauty. This song was never properly released and only appeared on much later compilations of early 1980s Ministry, but there must be an alternate universe where this song topped the Billboard charts. For me it’s not so much about the lyrics themselves, but the sound of the song and the vocals, not unlike Type O Negative’s “Haunted”. It sounds like the soundtrack to an adventure. It kind of makes me feel like I’m flying. That probably sounds strange but I like to close my eyes and let my imagination go when I listen to music sometimes. 

Affordable Floors - The Sounding

This is some little-known New Wave from 1986. It has the same sort of energy as “Game Over”. It’s another song that takes me places in my imagination. I imagine flying above the clouds, looking down at the world below, like what you see out the window in an airplane. 

Fuel - Shimmer

We move back to the 1990s with this song. Another track that appears on my earliest mixtapes, this is a song that I remember hearing in Middle School, and as such, like “Iris”, it’s another song that got me through some of the roughest times in my life. It’s been with me for a long time, and I never get tired of it. I think of the good times of my youth. “Will we ever be again”? And it may be true, that all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away again. There’s a sense of longing in this song, a sense of nostalgia, a sense of not being able to ever recapture the past. And yet all those sad feelings have been made into something beautiful. 

William Control - Cemetery (acoustic version)

The studio version of this song is a nice song, but I rather prefer the acoustic version. It reminds me of comparing Voltaire’s demo songs with how they ended up on his albums. There’s more raw emotion in this version of the song. It’s hard to describe why I find this song beautiful. I think, like the last few songs, it’s more emotionally beautiful, not so much about the lyrics themselves at face value. I used to live across the street from a cemetery when I was a teenager, in fact (I know, how goth), and I would stare out my bedroom window at it on those long summer days where I wasn’t in school, and just contemplate it. This song brings me back to those days, even though it’s only a few years old. It reminds me of just letting your walls come down and allowing yourself to feel emotions again, which is something I had to learn to do again when I got out of High School. 

The Smashing Pumpkins- Galapagos

“Ain’t it funny how we pretend we’re still a child?” As opposed to “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans” which I mostly like for the music, I like this song also for the lyrics. It’s another childhood song. The whole album was like my favorite music ever when I was ten years old, that’s how two songs from it made this list. I’ve always liked this track, it’s a sentimental one. 

Type O Negative- Green Man

I gave Type O Negative one more track as well. There are a lot of beautiful songs from them, but to me this one is second only to “Haunted”. I like that it evokes nature imagery. It starts slow, opening with the chirping of birds, but by the end of it, it transcends itself and becomes a harmonious, spiritual experience. But just as you feel like your soul is about to leave your body and go astral traveling, it cuts off abruptly. I think this was just part of the band’s sense of humor. Still, a really beautiful song. There’s a demo version out there with a complete ending, but it’s from a long-lost cassette that had been dubbed from a master tape apparently, so not the greatest sound quality. And they ended it like the theme at the end of an episode of The Three Stooges. Ah you were so funny, Peter Steele.

Ace Morino - Summer

All right, time for the synthwave section. I really like this song, and it’s one of the newer songs on the list, the newest in fact, having come out in 2019. A wistful melody and lyrics about the changing seasons and longing for the past. It is thematically similar to “Shimmer”. It manages to capture the energy of the waning days of Summer, with the cold months just ahead. Summer is my least favorite season but this song still makes me feel sad that summer is ending, and with it, the good times. I remember feeling that way in grade school, but it was the vacation I was really mourning, not the season itself.

The Midnight- Crystalline

This song includes one of the best saxophone solos I have ever heard. It manages to bring to my mind a crystal landscape; in fact it makes me think of the Emerald City in Oz, said to be a most beautiful city inlaid with emeralds and gemstones everywhere you look. The Midnight has a lot of beautiful songs, I simply chose what I feel is their prettiest song. 

Kalax - Let Go

This song will always bring me back to a particular moment in my life, because of when I first heard it. I talked about it on another Mixtape Reflection but I don’t mind summarizing it again. It was back in 2019, the day I got fired from the worst job I ever had, at the Macy’s call center, for using up my attendance credits. When I got home it hadn’t really sunk in yet. I was in a state of shock I guess. I laid back in bed, put YouTube on the TV, and this song appeared in my subscriptions. I put it on, and it had kind of a healing effect. I felt an outpouring of emotion. I could finally let go of the negativity and the demons that had been haunting me since I started working at that place. The trauma was finally over. I feel like this song has a healing power to it. 

Opale - Sparkles and Wine

I put the extended version on the playlist but you should watch the music video for it, though it uses the shortened version. It’s flashing lights against a woman’s face, but it just has kind of an otherworldly effect. People in the comments have said that’s what the world looks like to them when they drop acid. I never have, but I will take their word for it. This song is hypnotic. In fact, if I’m being honest, I imagine this being the last song that goes through my mind before I die. I don’t know if anyone else ever contemplates that. It is an uncomfortable thing to think about. It’s something that will happen to everyone eventually, there’s no use denying it. I feel like this is the song I will hear when I finally leave my body, and go back to the stars. Hopefully that won’t be for a long time.

Hate Songs - Mix CD Reflections

 

Valentine’s Day is soon upon us, tis the season of love! What better time to listen to a playlist of hate songs? Hatred has been something I’ve long striven to overcome. I’ve written about this struggle before. But every now and then, in a fit of anger, I might regress. It’s only human. I try not to make it permanent. There will always be things I hate. I made a playlist of songs for a mix CD some months ago; a collection of hate songs. More for fun than anything else, and something to listen to when I’m angry as a way to vent. Part of an old habit. It’s another in my series of mixes which focus on one word or concept. Others I have talked about on the blog before are Cold, the Moon, the Sun. I have more coming up too, one about the Heart, and one about Time. But, it is interesting to listen to it and ponder the concept of hatred, and the many different ways the songwriters use it in their songs. The purpose of the mix is to first allow me to vent, then stew for a little bit, begin to calm down, and then lift me out of my bad mood, leaving me in a better mood than I was at the beginning of the mix. This just works for me. It’s like music therapy.

Here is the track listing. I will briefly discuss each song that I feel warrants discussion. I remade 5e mix in Spotify for those who want to listen along, but Spotify doesn’t have every song.

 

Hate Songs– Spotify Playlist 

 

Gwar – Sick of You

            This is the first song I think of when I think of a “hate” song. Often it would come to my mind when dealing with difficult customers while I was working at the call centers. A song for someone you are just so sick and tired of being around. We all have someone we could dedicate this song to.

 

Korn – Right Now

Right now, I can’t control myself I fucking hate you!

What originally drew me to this song was the music video, an animation of someone mutilating themselves in horrifically twisted ways. If you read my comics, you know I get that kind of humor. The song is also great to listen to when you’re angry. Sing along, rock out. Try it sometime, it’s really cathartic.

 

Twiztid – Kill Somebody

This song builds off the energy of the previous. A song for those times when you’re so livid, when you’re seeing red, and your anger isn’t so much directed at one person but at everything. We all have those times. Some more often than others. Myself, more when I was in my teens, but still every so often.  

 

Alice in Chains – Love, Hate, Love 

This is kind of a cool-down song after the last two. This song transitions us from the really angry songs to the dark and seething symphonic black metal songs to come. It is more contemplative, contrasting the concepts of love and hate.   

Covenant – The Dark Conquest

Don’t we all, at one time or another, at some point in our lives, wish we had ultimate power? The power to act on our hate without any consequences? This song taps into dark fantasy. Off one of my favorite albums of all time In Times Before the Light. I decided to go with the original version over the 2002 industrial metal version after the band changed their name to The Kovenant. It’s more raw, more pure. The remixed one is also longer, and I needed this mix to fit on an 80 minute CD. But both versions are good.

Dimmu Borgir – The Serpentine Offering

I am hatred, darkness and despair.

Similar energy to the previous song. Dimmu Borgir is great at adding a symphonic element to their black metal, creating powerful dark music that could be the soundtrack to a supervillain. It really gets your adrenaline rushing, especially if you’re angry.

 

Cradle of Filth – Thank God for the Suffering

This song is on here if for no other reason than for the chant of “Hate! Hate! Hate!” at the end of the song. This rounds off the black metal section of the mix, as by the end of this song my adrenaline will be spent. 

 

[:SITD:] – Brother Death

I hate you, you hate me, Brother Death is calling me.

This track kind of tones things down compared to the last song, but not too much. That “I hate you, you hate me” line reminds me a bit too much of the anti-Barney songs we used to sing in Elementary School though. “I hate you, you hate me. Let’s get together and kill Barney. With a great big axe and a loaded .44, no more purple dinosaur.” We all had such an irrational hatred for that purple dinosaur back in the 1990s. To this day I still do. I can’t explain why. I mean to be fair, Elmo from Sesame Street is probably even more irritating. My two year old has never watched an episode of Barney though, and it will stay that way.

 

Insane Clown Posse – Hate Her to Death

This track may seem out of place with the others if you go by the band name, but it’s not exactly. It’s a song about hating someone for not loving you back. It is the kind of feeling you would only get as a teenager or something. But perhaps it is something I remember. 

Orange Sector – I Hate You

 This is an essential hate song, for obvious reasons. Orange Sector has at least a couple good hate songs, this being one of them. The singer reminds me of Ren from Ren & Stimpy. 

Gwar – Hate Love Songs

I hate love songs! I hate lovers! I hate, everything that I can’t have, so I hate love!

A great song for those poor souls who are single on Valentine’s Day. I ought to know, I have still spent the majority of my Valentine’s Days single. 

 

Ayria – Friends and Enemies

It’s okay to hate your enemies, it’s either them or me, just want to break their things.

Is it okay to hate your enemies? Ayria seems to think so. Hate begets hate though. I did a pretty good writeup on this song back when I reviewed the album it appears on. 

 

Little Big – For the Haters

The word “hate” doesn’t appear in this song much. Instead the main word is “bitch”, pronounced “beetch” in a Russian accent. I love the insult in here “your dick is under six inches”. What a burn.

 

Orange Sector – I Spit on You

I spit on you, I spit in your face! I spit on you, I spit on your grave!

This song compliments the previous one by Orange Sector. “I spit on your grave” is an insult we don’t hear often enough. 

 

And One – H.A.T.E.

 I know, you know, what you gonna hate?

This is a cool-down song, which Spotify does not have unfortunately. So you can find it on YouTube. I was obsessed with this band for many years. Not sure what they’re up to these days. But this song is quite catchy. Not as angry as the last several.

Buzz Kull – Ode to Hate

 Once again, this track is more catchy than angry. I like the lyric “The world I’m living in makes no sense”, because it doesn’t. Hate itself makes very little sense sometimes. Particularly when based on race or nationality.

Voltaire – God Thinks

I hate people who blame the devil for their own shortcomings, and I hate people who thank God when things go right.

A very poignant song about how people in power twist the word of God to suit their own often hateful agendas. More of a rant set to music, really. 

 

Diary of Dreams – Play God

Why don’t you compensate all of my pain and hate?

Hate really isn’t the central subject of this song, but it is yet another calm down song. I needed a few of those after screaming along to Korn. 

 

And One – Save the Hate

Save, the hate, it’s another day. Don’t bring me down it’s far too late.

To me this song is about not giving into the hate, not letting the people who want you to be upset win. Just go on with your day, and save your hate for someone who has really earned it, at least. Don’t waste it on petty internet trolls the like. And it’s a great song to end the mix on for that lesson. 

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed the mix if you decide to put it together yourself. What songs would you add? You can go ahead and let me know over on Facebook if you will (you can comment on Blogger, but it never lets me know when I get new comments). If I end up liking the suggestions maybe I can include them on a longer 90 minute cassette version of the mix. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! 

The Sun – A Solstice Playlist Dedicated to Our Nearest Star - Mix CD Reflections

            More people should see the Sun the way it looks in this picture. It really puts our reality into a different perspective. Here’s a fun thing you can look up. Go on Google and ask it “What’s the nearest star to the Earth?”

It gives you Alpha Centauri A, which is 4.3 lightyears from Earth. Is the Sun, a mere 93 million miles away, a joke to you, Google? Is it because we subconsciously as humans don’t put the Sun in the same category as the rest of the stars, even though it is a star? By the way, I love watching videos where someone attaches a camera to a weather balloon and lets it fly into the upper atmosphere. It nearly gets to the vacuum of space before popping. When you see the sun up there, against a black background instead of blue, and you see other stars in the sky, it makes you confront the fact that the sun is just another star. A closer one to us, but a star nonetheless. Why do we categorize the Sun differently? 

The ancient Armenians considered themselves the Children of the Sun; as did the Incas, and the ancient Egyptians, and countless other cultures, separated by centuries and continents. The vast majority of religions ever followed by humanity have the Sun as their central deity. It’s true though. We are the children of the sun. We exist because of the Sun. The atoms and molecules that make up our bodies come from the Sun, formed in the same gas cloud as the Sun eons ago. We forget this due to modern materialism, which postulates that the sun is nothing more than an uninteresting, unremarkable flaming ball of gas. Not many people really stop to contemplate the Sun or be grateful to it. It’s been objectified, despiritualized and taken for granted. It simply is. Yet we rely on it in uncountable ways.

            I myself have had a somewhat troubled relationship with the Sun over the years. I like darkness. The Sun bothers my eyes, and I dislike heat and get sunburned easily. I prefer night to day, and winter to summer. But in the last couple years I’ve been grappling with existentialism, the meaning of life, and contemplating the universe I’ve found myself in, as well as my own existence. You could call it an existential crisis, but I view it more as an awakening. I discovered the hypothesis of panpsychism, which postulates that the stars have their own consciousness and are in a sense alive, and the epiphany was mind-blowing.

            Here’s an article explaining panpsychism, and here’s short YouTube video where the theory is discussed. 

A star has a life cycle; it is born, it builds itself and grows just like an embryo, reaches maturity, grows old, and dies. Most scientists rely on the hypothesis of dark matter to explain why stars defy gravity, expanding the universe when gravity ought to be making the universe contract, and why stars move faster around their galaxies than should be physically possible. But there’s no proof of dark matter’s existence. Who’s to say the stars aren’t moving of their own volition?

I see the Sun as my oldest living ancestor. Panpsychism can’t be proved nor disproved and likely never will be, which is why it's likely to be labeled a pseudoscience and not taken seriously by the scientific community. But I feel that I’ve faith in it. Almost a sort of religion, I suppose, based both in modern science and ancient paganism, whereas the Gods are more like symbolic personifications of real ideas and concepts. But really, I view it more as an interpretation of reality, or a philosophy. And one guess is as good as another when it comes to interpreting this bizarre reality we’ve been born into. I’m not dogmatic about it, I could even change my mind entirely down the road. But the ancients always believed the Sun has a consciousness. Ra, Apollo, Aramazd, all the Sun Gods are different representations and interpretations of the Sun by different cultures. Why do children tend to draw a face on the sun? Could it be that we’re all inherently aware of the sun’s consciousness somewhere in the back of our minds, until modern society convinces us it’s not true? If the Sun does indeed possess a consciousness, it would be something that we couldn't even comprehend. Perhaps the sun is hyper-aware of all that its rays of light touch. Are we as lifeforms merely extensions of the Sun’s consciousness? Are we not all a part of the Sun, in some way? 

 In appreciation of the Sun, I’ve put together a mix CD in honor of this year’s Summer Solstice. It could be considered a sister mix to the one I did about the Moon. Each song is either about the Sun or mentions it somewhere in the lyrics. The playlist takes the form of a day; at the beginning is a song about dawn, and near the end are songs about sunset. Each song was relevant to me at some point in my life. It crosses genres.  

I tried my best to rebuild the playlist on Spotify for anyone interested. They had most of the songs, but not all.

The Sun – Spotify Playlist

Rammstein – Sonne

“Hier kommt die Sonne.”

            This song is one of the best odes to the Sun I know of. Although entirely in German. It's about the rising sun, how it is the brightest star in the sky. I always liked the angelic feminine vocals that accompany the song. It brings to mind light.

Pink Floyd – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

            As a Pink Floyd song it has a psychedelic quality to it. It’s the song that makes me think about the actual Sun as a star in space, and contemplate what a remarkable thing the Sun really is, as well as the mystery surrounding its purpose in the universe.

La Scaltra – Astral Kiss

“The moon, the sun, and the astral kiss.”

            This song also has a spacey energy to it. I don’t know what an “astral kiss” is. Perhaps it refers to an eclipse. But it is a great concept. Very poetic. I couldn’t find it on Spotify, unfortunately, but three of La Scaltra’s albums are on there.

Holygram – She’s Like the Sun

“She’s like the sun, far away.”

            If the only thing that the woman in this song has in common with the Sun is that she’s far away, I don’t think she’s very much like the sun. Is she 93 million miles away like the Sun? Anyway, I do like this song a lot.

And One – The Sun

“At the first day of life you were blinded by light, don’t believe the Sun.”

            A lot of And One songs, especially the English language ones, are just word salad, it’s hard to find meaning in them. But I think this song is about how the Sun is a constant throughout your life. It mentions stages in your life from birth to death. It may even mention reincarnation in the lines “So you die and you’re dancing in the tunnel of light, don’t believe the Sun. At the first day of life then it shines so bright and then, you realize you’re born again.” Kind of goes with my theory that your soul is part of the Sun and returns to the Sun after death to be recycled into another lifeform.

Another song missing from Spotify, sadly.

New Order – True Faith

“I used to think that the day would never come, that my life would depend on the morning sun.”

            I don’t really know what this song is about exactly. But it is interesting when someone talks about a “morning Sun” as if it’s separate from a “noon Sun” or an “evening Sun”, even though it’s the same star. I suppose the Egyptians had more than one Sun God, Horus representing the morning Sun and Ra representing the evening Sun. It’s like when someone says “look at that moon!” as if there’s more than one. It’s funny to think about how other human beings look at the Sun and Moon.

Stratovarius – Eagleheart

“Heart of an eagle he flies through the rainbow into a new world and finds the Sun.”

            Here’s another song I don’t know how to interpret. But, the lyrics are very poetic. I think the singer must have been making some sort of metaphor.  The mention of rainbows is a good lyric to bring up, as a rainbow wouldn’t exist without the Sun.

The Bambir – Արև է Ելել (The Sun is Up)

            The Bambir is an Armenian folk rock group, and this song, translating to The Sun is Up, is dedicated to the Velvet Revolution of 2018, when the people of Armenia organized a massive peaceful protest and forced the Prime Minister Serj Sargsyan, known for his corruption, to resign. The Sun here represents hope and optimism, the end of a long dark night that began with the fall of the Soviet Union.

https://thebambir.bandcamp.com/track/arev-e-elel-the-sun-is-up

Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars

“Must have been, late afternoon. On our way, the Sun broke free of the clouds.”

            This is a song from my childhood in the 1990’s. It’s very emotional, I get nostalgic and teary-eyed sometimes if I listen to it in the right mood. The line above is some great use of imagery, I can see the image in my mind when the singer describes it. And the main chorus says “Tell me all your thoughts on God, ‘cuz I’d really like to meet Her.” Interesting pronoun choice, but I have no qualms with it. I’m at the point now where I think of the Sun and stars as Gods. Those are my thoughts.

Type O Negative – September Sun

“September sun, blowing golden hair.”

            Nice use of imagery in the lyrics, but I don’t know if the sun really “blows” anything, does it? Anyway, you can’t go wrong with throwing Type O Negative on the mix. This is one of their characteristically dark and beautiful songs. September is when the Sun seems to wane, as the northern hemisphere tilts away from it. The sunlight almost has a different color tint to it in the autumn. 

            And this song is missing from Spotify! How? I think the whole album it’s on is missing. Maybe that will change eventually. As an aside, making this playlist made me realize whether or not a song can be found on Spotify doesn't necessarily depend on how obscure it is. 

Voltaire – All the Way Down (Cave Canem Demo)

“The sun goes down, as children listen. All the way down.”

            Now we get the songs about the sunset. This song is a beautiful one, which makes the connection of sunset with death. I listened to this song when my grandfather Dean passed away, and it tends to make me think of him, even though I don’t think he would have ever heard this song himself. It’s kind of my private tribute song to him.

The Midnight – Sunset

“Sunsets, no regrets, first chance last dance stuck in the middle.”

            This is a song about just packing up and leaving everything behind with your significant other to start a new life somewhere else. You don’t usually see sunsets being used as a metaphor for new beginnings, that’s usually more of a dawn thing, making this song unique in that regard. It’s a great song.

The Jetzons – When the Sun Goes Down

            Another song about the sunset. I’ve talked about this obscure early 1980’s New Wave band before, and their connection with the soundtrack of the video game Sonic the Hedgehog 3. It’s been theorized that this song served as the basis for the Marble Garden Zone.

The Kentucky Vampires – The Falling Sun

            Everyone’s favorite Kentucky goth rock band besides Scary Black. I don't have a whole lot to say about it. The songs get darker from here on in, and this song helps the transition. There's a certain science to making playlists that flow well, you see.

Svetlana Mart – Moon Eclipsed the Sun

            I mentioned this song in my top 3 songs of June. It’s a catchy little number about casting spells during a solar eclipse. I’ve witnessed one solar eclipse in my life, it was that famous one on August 21, 2017. In Florida it was only partial, but the sky got dimmer, it got less hot out, and the sunlight in the shadows under trees became crescent-shaped. It felt like I was wearing sunglasses but I wasn’t. It was pretty surreal. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see a total solar eclipse. But I would love to one day.

VNV Nation - Further

“The sun was born, so it shall die, so only shadows comfort me.”

            This is a great song about existential nihilism. Earlier in the song it asks “When the sun burns out, will any of this matter?” These are questions I’ve been tackling recently. One day the Sun will expand into a red giant, likely swallowing the Earth in the process, but not before all of Earth’s oceans boil away. Who will be around to talk about humanity then?

SYZYGYX – The Dying Sun

            This song is nearly an instrumental if not for some vocalizations by the singer here and there. The dark imagery that the instrumental brings to mind is of the Sun as a red giant in billions of years, scorching the solar system and engulfing the inner planets. Will life exist in the solar system at this point? Perhaps its doubtful; I don’t really hold much hope for the human race to last more than a few hundred more years myself, but perhaps I’m being too pessimistic. I also like to think that life takes on more forms than scientists currently think. Perhaps every planet has its own type of life. But, I don’t base that on any actual evidence. It’s just a thought.

Cloud Chemist – WANNASEETHESUN

            This short instrumental which I wrap the playlist up with samples the female vocals from Rammstein’s "Sonne", giving the playlist a good bookend. Like the cycle of day and night, it ends where it begins.

Mixtape Reflections: Work For Love

            So I’ve talked about the job I enjoyed having in my last post. Now I’m afraid it is time to discuss the worst job I’ve ever had; working at a call center for a furniture and bedding department, which I stayed doing for the health insurance for my pregnant wife. It was a little over a year ago that I was finally fired from this job for using too many sick days; not that they cared that my wife had just given birth and needed extra help, nor that what pushed me over the limit was actually coming down with the flu. I guess they wanted me to come to work and get everyone else sick! To them, I was a defective cog in their machine and had to be removed. But being fired was one of the best days of my life anyway. Fortunately, it’s all behind me now. I’ve talked about it on here before, in my post about how the Oz books became my main coping mechanism at a job where I was belittled, berated, dehumanized and yelled at 40 hours a week. Another thing I did between calls was keep a journal. This was allowed because we weren’t handling any confidential personal information. This journal chronicles my downward spiral into madness, but more importantly for this blog post, an entry in it chronicles my decision to make a mix tape out of the whole experience. Songs that popped in my head a lot on the job, songs that were relevant to my experiences. This is an example of how I use mixes and playlists as a form of memoir.

One of the saner couple of pages, trust me.

            Why make mixtapes about bad times in my life? Is it strictly healthy to go back to tapes like this and mope over things that happened years ago? It’s not as if I go back and listen to tapes like this that often, mind you. I guess I just don’t like forgetting eras of my life, bad or good. Like all human beings who don’t have unusually strong photographic memories, I have a mild case of amnesia. I have only the vaguest sense of what I was doing more than two days ago on any given day. Let alone five, ten, fifteen years ago. And I don’t know if my memory has been getting worse as the years go on. It’s a little scary. But I retain memories in songs. It’s important to remember the past so you can learn from it. Those who don’t are doomed to repeat it, as the cliché goes. I also think a part of me feels triumph in overcoming past hardships. I survived working this horrible job. Never again.

            Included on the tape are samples of songs from the hold music I was tormented with, day in day out. How I grew to despise these songs. They’re on here as a reminder, lest I ever forget. Of course, it’s not the full songs. I would be on hold often, either to speak to a team leader for help, escalate Karen the Furious Soccer Mom to a supervisor, call in for NPT (non-phone time, I think is what it stood for; basically permission to be off the phone so I could finish processing a refund or whatever else). The songs were “Stockholm Syndrome” by One Direction, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, “That’s the Way it Is” by Celine Dion, “Chariot” by Gavin DeGraw, and “Everlasting Love” by Howard Jones. These are my least favorite songs in the world, and to this day if I hear them somewhere, I get horrible flashbacks. The people who made these songs and sold them to a call center company to be used as hold music deserve to be strapped to a chair and forced to listen to the song they created on loop for 40 hours a week.  I remade this tape as a Spotify playlist, but did not include these songs, not only to spare the ears of whoever reads this blog and wants to listen to my mix, but because I heard the artists make a tiny bit of money when their song is played on Spotify, and I wouldn’t want that.

Work For Love - Spotify Playlist

Ministry – Work For Love

            The mix starts with some hold music before transitioning into “Work For Love” by Ministry, the tape’s namesake. Love was the only reason I kept working at this call center, so it is fitting in that sense. It makes me think back to my early days starting the job, before I became traumatized by it.

Type O Negative - I Don’t Wanna be Me

Next is a song that often pops into my head when I’m trapped in some horrible situation I don’t want to be in. This job really did make me not want to be me anymore.

Brotherhood - Damned

This a song that often came to my mind on the job. The chorus “I’m damned if I do, I’m damned if I don’t, there is no hope” spoke to me at the time. Being at the call center did make me feel like I was damned. Surrounded by broken souls, in Hell.

Weird Al Yankovic - “Callin’ in Sick”

This is a little break from the doom and gloom on the tape, a triumphant ode to faking sick to take the day off from work, sticking it to the man. There were days where I could call in sick in order to get a three-day weekend. Other times, I just mentally couldn’t handle being there that day. Yes, this probably contributed to my being fired for taking too many sick days, ultimately. I guess I’m just not as good of a worker as a soulless robot.

Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence

            The next song on the mix is “Enjoy the Silence”, which lyrically reminded me of the silence between phone calls. On Sundays I could go a good twenty minutes in between phone calls sometimes, so I would purposely try to work on Sundays. On holidays, there could be even longer between calls. But more normally the calls were back to back all day. Eventually, the silence would end with a horrible beep in my headset. ”Words like violence, break the silence”. You’d never know when that beep would come and words would break the silence. You never knew if you were about to get someone fairly nice, or someone who was about to scream at you. The anxiety builds and builds. It’s like Chinese water torture.

Mortiis - Marshland

            I’ve discussed in length Mortiis’ song “Marshland” before. It's kind of strange how often he comes up on this blog. I suppose he is one of my favorite musicians, as well as a bit of a role model for me. The next few songs follow the theme of “the machine”. That is what the corporation is like. Cold, unfeeling, only caring about profit, not people. “Nothing that I say or do, matters to the big machine. Nothing that I think or feel, matters to the big machine. And if I’m dead when tomorrow’s gone, the big machine will just move on.”

Kraftwerk – The Robots

The next song, Kraftwerk’s “The Robots”, continues the theme. The Russian lyric in the song translates to “I’m your slave, I’m your worker”. I think this song is about capitalism. When you work at a call center, you are just a number. A statistic. Completely replaceable. They're listening in on your calls, they can check what's going on your computer screen, your bathroom breaks are strictly timed, and you will be lectured and derided by your team leader in coaching when none of their statistics are satisfactory. They own you. No privacy, no freedom. Paid the barest minimum the company can get away with paying you. The only reason there’s health insurance is so that you’re so terrified of getting fired and losing that insurance you’ll be their completely loyal robot. Why do you think there’s no universal healthcare in the United States? Because then no one would be stuck doing these shitty jobs, that’s why.

The Cure – Cold

This song is here mainly because I listened to it a lot at the time I was working at the call center. It conveys the depression I felt. I felt dehumanized and hopeless. Its here more for the energy of the music than the lyrical content.

Pink Floyd – Welcome to the Machine

This song came to me again one day as I was writing in my journal and waiting for the next terrible call to come in. I was here because my wife was pregnant. Here in this Hell. Is this the world I was bringing my son into? Where people are raised from the cradle up to be brainwashed and exploited? Turned into obedient workers? That’s the whole point of school in this country after all. And am I supposed to lie to him for his whole childhood about how horrible the world really is? This song is about doing just that I think. It’s about giving your son a sheltered childhood, and then introducing him to the soulless real world when he reaches adulthood. I still struggle with these questions, even if I’m in a somewhat better place now.

Sadie Killer – The Working Dead

This is where Side B starts, Side A ending with a sample of crappy hold music. So yes, I’ve watched the cartoon Steven Universe, and that’s where this song is from. An anthem to those who hate their dead end jobs, it is all too appropriate for this mix, and a song I came to listen to a lot during my short breaks. Steven Universe is an unexpected source for music that speaks to me, but here we are I guess. And Spotify even had it. 

The Kovenant - Mannequin

This song reminded me of my poor, broken co-workers, drowning in a sea of cubicles, especially the ones who had been there for years, for whom any hope of a better life had dissolved, any dreams they once had, pulverized to dust. “You’re just another faceless mannequin, you’re just another fallen star.” You lose your identity, your very sense of being, working in a call center. You are merely the face of the company. Merely a recording. A robot. I could have become one of them. I almost did. The journal entry I posted up above shows you the moment I realized it should be on this mix.

Gwar – Sick of You

And the next few songs are dedicated to those horrible customers. Oh, how sick I was of them. Their entitlement. Their first world problems. The ones who just would not shut up. I would sing this song to myself sometimes after putting them on hold and transferring them somewhere.

Twiztid – Kill Somebody

I would get this mad sometimes. There’s only so much abuse I can take. Some people forget they’re talking to human beings. I’ve been yelled at, called a retard among other things, treated like shit. Working at a call center is like being a urinal. You’re just there to be pissed on by random people. You’re not a person, you’re an object, there to serve the purpose of being pissed on. Sometimes people will throw a wad of gum in there or something even worse. They’re not supposed to, but who’s really going to stop them? When I reached my limit, I would sometimes hit the phone or the computer screen. One time I tore my stress ball into tiny little pieces. And that’s what this song is there to illustrate.

The Sweeney Todd Soundtrack – Epiphany

“There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit and it’s filled with people who are filled with shit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it. But not for long. They all deserve to die…” This song illustrates well the darkest depths that this job pushed me to. This job made me hate humanity. It made me long for an asteroid to just smack into the Earth and wipe everyone out.

Faderhead – This is Your World

The second song that bashes the world which led me to be trapped in this job, at least until I was finally fired. “This is your world, I don’t wanna live here.” And I really didn’t, when I worked here. I wanted to go live in Oz. Or at least Armenia.

White Ring – IXC99

This song is kind of a calm down song after the previous two. A song I liked while I was working at the call center. It’s still dark, but a little calmer. Save for the shotgun blast in the background.

Audiotherapie – Devil’s Mind

“Consumption, is that enough to satisfy your needs? All the things you learned, he is going to earn. Money is your religion, money rules your world.” This is a song about the kind of world we live in, where corporations and the rich rule, all that matters is money, and we’ve all been brainwashed into consumerism. The kind of world where, even though I wanted to be an author and artist and got a Master’s degree in Creative Writing, I was still trapped in a job I hated, stripped of my dignity and pride, berated, and nearly destroyed. The artist has no place in this world, where everything has to be quantified, and if it is not useful to the billionaire class it is discarded and treated as if it has no worth. Money is a religion, especially in the United States. Money is God. Money is how the powerful stay powerful. I hate money. I hate, to my very core, whoever it was in history that came up with the idea of money. Hate them. Let's go back to bartering. 

This one isn’t on Spotify or YouTube as far as I can tell. I first heard it on the Communion After Dark podcast. So, I’ll just link to their Bandcamp page.

https://audiotherapie.bandcamp.com/track/devils-mind

Switchblade Symphony – Sweet

This, like “Cold” by The Cure, is kind of only here for the energy of it. But lyrics like “Broken people, hollow and feeble” describe the people who worked at this call center. So it fits. The song reminds me of when I would just give in to the despair. I would lose the energy and will to be angry or sad. I would stop feeling anything, and just accept my fate. Become the robot. A faceless mask. A bard no more.

Voltaire – Underground

“Six walls of wood, to keep them out. The smart remarks, the screams the shouts. They scream, they shout. There’s only one way to drown them out.” Yes. There were days, when the job pushed me to these depths of sorrow. Days where sleep was my only escape from the nightmare that my waking hours had become. Days where…I wished I could have stayed asleep. Just to drown out the smart remarks, screams and shouts.

David Bowie – I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday

This song to me represents the dreams that I had and still have, which kept me alive for those months I worked at this call center. I wasn’t going to be one of those people stuck working there for ten years. I couldn’t give up. I didn’t know when I was going to get out of there, but I knew it would happen eventually. Just like I don’t know when I’ll be a successful author and cartoonist, but I know it’ll happen one day.

So there’s a takeaway from this mixtape, even though it chronicles a very bleak, hopeless time in my life. Nothing bad lasts forever. Every storm runs out of rain. Your present situation isn’t your final destination. All those feel-good slogans you can think of that mean that the torture will eventually end.

Now the day I got fired, I knew I’d used up my attendance credits. I wasn’t going to say anything; I was going to make as much money as I could before I was canned. My team leader wasn’t there for a couple days, so I actually worked a couple more days before she arrived; forty-five minutes into my shift, she called me up, let me know I’d overused my credits, and told me to clean out my desk. I grabbed my stuff, and left. It took a while to sink in that I was finally free. I went home, laid in bed, and just tried to come to grips with it. I checked my subscriptions on YouTube, and the synthwave channel New Retro Wave had just uploaded the song “Let Go” by Kalax. It seemed to fit the moment. This tape had already been made and is only 90 minutes long, but if it were possible to add to it without recording over another song, I’d have had this as a bonus track. The song signaling the final end of my time at this awful call center. It was time to let go of all of that negativity and move on with my life. I worked in two other call centers after this unfortunately, but neither of them were as bad. I’m still haunted by the experience but I am in a much better place now.