Angel Eyes

It began with a mix tape.

I've made a metric ton of mix tapes in my time and have written about my love of them. I still like to make playlists with themes (Summertime, Cocktail hour, Thanksgiving). As much as I love the art of the entire album, one whole and fully realized collection of songs, I do enjoy throwing disparate tracks onto a list and being delighted when I hear them pop up in some seemingly random order somewhere down the line.

This particular mix tape was mostly made of ballads, slower stuff. It began with Dire Straits "Why Worry" and ended with Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine." Along with way it had slow and lovely tracks such as Jackson Browne's "Late for the Sky" and Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You" and Elvis Presley's "I Can't Help Falling In Love" and R.E.M.'s cover of Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes."

Why did I make this tape? For women, of course! Not that I had them pounding at my door, but this tape seemed to be "mood-inspiring" enough to put on when in the company of, as Radar O'Reilly would say, "a lady of the opposite sex."

Months after I made it the tape still had seen no use. Alas.

But then I met the woman who would become my wife (22 years ago today, actually - June 6, 1992) and one evening during dinner (I think) I put it on. And it made for lovely background music.


But it was when one song came on—Jeff Healey's stunning version of John Hiatt's perfect love story, "Angel Eyes—that my life changed.

I loved that song; I didn't care how produced it was or the fact that rockers likely busted out their air guitars when Jeff broke out some letter-perfect and metal-riffic (although still ballad-worthy) solos. I loved the sentiment, the melody, the earnestness of the words and the tireless, devout honesty of what is essentially a triumph of the underdog. I loved this song. Still do. Both Healey's popular version and Hiatt's original.

"Oh my God," my future wife said when "Angel Eyes" came up in the mix, "I love this song!"

That's what I knew I would marry her. Whether she wanted to or not. (I think she did...unless of course these 22 years have been part of a long con...if so, all I can say is "Well played, m'lady.")

"Angel Eyes" became the first dance at our wedding and the song that basically came to define us to each other. John Hiatt wrote it for his own, and that's awesome. But this isn't John's song anymore. It's ours.

Girl you're looking fine tonight,

And every fella has got you in his sight.

What you're doing with a clown like me

Is surely one of life's little mysteries.

So tonight I'll ask the stars above,

"How did I ever win your love?

"What did I do? What did I say?

To turn your angel eyes my way?"

I'm the guy who never learned to dance

Who never even got one second glance

Across the crowded room was close enough

I could look but I could never touch.

So tonight I'll ask the stars above,

"How did I ever win your love?

"What did I do? What did I say?

To turn your angel eyes my way?"

Don't anyone wake me if it's just a dream,

Because she's the best thing ever happened to me.

All you fellows, well you can look all you like,

'Cause this girl you see is leaving here with me tonight.

There's just one more thing I need to know.

If this is love, why does it scare me so?

It must be something only you can see,

'Cause girl I feel it when you look at me.

So tonight I'll ask the stars above,

"How did I ever win your love?

"What did I do? What did I say?

To turn your angel eyes my way?"

This song is about the win, the win you never thought you'd get and maybe never thought you'd even deserve. But you got it, you won. We won.

Happy anniversary to the girl who turned her angel eyes my way.

Mix-A-Lot

When we were kids growing up in the 70s, my brothers and I heard our first-ever mixtape. It was one that my Dad made and played in the car on a consistent basis on pretty much every trip we made—to the beach, to Vermont on ski trips, to upstate New York or central New Jersey to visit family friends, and even on long, long rides from Connecticut to Florida.

My Dad called it "Assorted Cuts," and he originally made it on his massive reel-to-reel player before transferring it to a 90-minute Memorex cassette tape that he'd be able to use in his brand new car cassette player. And yes, he probably had a version copied onto an 8-track tape as well.  

I can still vividly picture the dark blue Memorex tape with the words "Asstd. Cuts" not written on the label, but rather pasted on front one of those old-fashioned raised label makers. Without a question this was not a tape my Dad had any intention of taping over.

It was a collection of roughly 20 songs, many of which I recall in order. Side 1 began with the Eagles "Take it to the Limit," followed by Olivia Newton John warbling "Have You Never Been Mellow," Cat Stevens' bizarrely soul-free version of "Another Saturday Night," and then to my Dad's all-time favorite song, Kris Kristofferson's weary version of his epic "Me and Bobby McGee." Next came Steeleye Span's "Blackjack Davey." And if you've ever heard it, well, I am impressed. Because I have never met anyone who has.

But the mix, I have come to realize, contained music that planted a lot of seeds for me. It had three Beatles songs that my Dad spread throughout the 90-minute duration ("Hey Jude," "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Let It Be") that I have no doubt are the first three Beatles songs I ever heard. The tape was my introduction to Kristofferson (who remains a favorite today) as well as Ms. Newton John (who doesn't), and it contained a staggering four Elton John tunes (yes, it had the standards "Rocket Man" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," but also had the monumental "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" and the deep, deep cut of "A Bullet in the Gun of Robert Ford"). The tape had tracks from Carole King and Mary Travers sidled up against a screeching track from Janis Joplin "(Cry Baby," which my Mom couldn't stand and always wanted to fast forward.) 

It was an eclectic mix, to say for sure. That my Dad is a near equal devotee to ABBA as he is to Queen says something about him. Good, I think. Something very good. Even though anyone—anyone—who listens to ABBA has at least a small something inherently wrong with him/her. But I digress.

But that little mixtape was really the first-ever primer I had into pop music. Good and bad. I would give anything today to find it and listen to it, straight through, one more time, and hear those songs now as I heard them then. While staring out a car window and watching snow-peaked mountains get closer and closer, or I-95 highway signs clip by one after the other on a long, long journey south. To provide a backdrop to my travels, wherever I'm headed, that is as familiar to me as family. 

I've made a million mixes in the years since I first remember hearing my Dad's "Assorted Cuts" tape. A million of 'em. With songs as disparate as the ones he had, to tell the truth, only no longer limited to the confines of one 90-minute spool of tape. I've made tons of them. With 20 or 50 or 70 or even 90 songs on them, songs that come in nearly random order that surprised and delight me when I hear them a few years later, as I did on a recent trip to Florida when I sat listening to a 70-song mix I made in 2008 called "2008 Vacation Mix." I've made them, I've listened to them over and over again, and I've anxiously awaited whatever song comes next.

I've made a ton of them and I'll make a ton more. I love the work of art that is the music album, one artist putting a collection of songs together under one encompassing skin; I hope it's not a dying artform. But I also love making funny and interesting song mixes and having them spool out of the speakers, one surprise at a time.

But no mix will ever mean more to be, for better or for worse, than that "Asstd. Cuts" Memorex tape my Dad made all those years ago. For my brothers and me, it was the soundtrack to our childhood.

(Oh, and in case you care, here's "Blackjack Davey." And hell, it's not bad, I'd say.)