My Playlist Evolution

For a kid who grew up in the 1970’s, the music streaming services in 2024 and the ability to make a playlist by simply finding a song and “adding it” to my list is truly heavenly.

       A Playlist in the 1970’s required the delicate touch of a watchmaker, to place the needle from the record player arm down on the exact place where the song started without making a sound. This was  a process repeated countless times.

       Oh wait, that wasn’t all, you had to have the cassette player with its wide ass, clunky, chunky rectangle “buttons” ready to press “Play” to catch the exact moment the song was starting on the record player.

       Then, you had to shut the cassette player off at the end of the song. Next, find the song you wanted on perhaps that same record album or most times, another album, where the process would be repeated all over again.

      Now, if your dad, cat, sister, mother or whomever walked in while you were performing this delicate procedure with some stupid question like, “What are you doing?” or a declaration of  “This record player belongs to the family and you are dominating it,” you’d have to start all over again, because their voice was now on your cassette recording.

       Was it worth it? The satisfaction of producing your own medley of songs, in just the order you wanted them, was exhilarating. And it was also maddening, frustrating, and worth every moment.

       This procedure eliminated the need to wait for “your song” to come on the radio, or picking the record needle up countless times to replay the song that fit whatever teen angst moment I was experiencing.

       Where did all those cassette tapes go? I don’t have one of them left. I created a playlist for the book I wrote (and being published Dec. 3) and another one for the Rom Com I wrote and just completed the first round of edits. Okay, I wrote the list of songs for the Playlists. I haven’t actually made the playlists on a streaming service yet.

       I have it in my mind, that at my book events (I have two lined up so far-super exciting. One will be at my local Barnes and Noble, and one at The People’s Bookstore in Takoma Park.) I will have my Frankfurt Years Playlist in the background as I sign books. At age 14, I could only have dreamed that this scenario was possible. And at age 63, I made it come true. Well, come on, I gotta give credit for Playlistability to all the computer people/dreamer-doers who made the audio upgrade possible. Thank you, Dreamer-Doers!!

        I too, am a Dreamer-Doer. We can all be! Right now, I’ve got Brandi Carlisle’s “The Joke” on. Damn, that song captures so many feelings I’ve toughed out in my heart. And so, to the literary agent who told me, “You’re a nobody,” and the editor who said, “This writing is nothing we would ever accept as our writers are far and above anything you will ever be,” I say, “HA!” I laugh and have risen above it. Oh, and have done it  all to a kick-ass playlist.

      Thank you for reading my piece today. What is a song that is on your playlist?