Some words from Russell
Hello everybody,
I devoted several hours writing something for you all to offer insight into our relationship. So let’s explore highlights of the “E” mixes.
I have created twenty-one music mixes for “E”lizabeth (Beth) since we started dating in 2018. I used to burn CDs she could play in her car. I’d give her a mix in San Francisco, and she’d fly back and listen while driving home from Burbank Airport. At some point I started sending her off with my old iPod Photo from 2004 that I got as a bonus gift from Macromedia after a summer of hard work at the Baker & Hamilton Building. That way she could listen on the plane. I had originally named the iPod “Beth” after Beth Gibbons of Portishead, coincidentally.
The mixes became an extension of our time together and remain my earnest attempts at curating musical beauty (that sounds like musical booty which also works) for her, my beautiful and kind muse that I love so much, to enjoy and at least temporarily escape this world for ours.
xo
Russell
E
Her first mix in late 2018 was mostly slow and calm and light and clever. Mostly. I was being cautious.
I proposed on October 4th 2023 during one of our Music Wednesdays with the girls, when we sit together and enjoy mostly live music recordings. I’d found a great live version of Liz Phair’s song “Explain It To Me” at The Fillmore in San Francisco from the 90’s. The song has always been special to me, about a failed rocker, their trauma and the impossible task of keeping up with the scene and life and its expectations. A study and admission and prediction of inevitable self-vulnerability and failure. Struggles we’d seen each other experience. Struggles that a partner is so valuable in helping to withstand, accept and carry on through.
Song number three. Despite my caution, I knew deep down that I was in love with her when I added “Explain It To Me” to E.
E2
Very different from the first. Blastoff. Hip hop, trip hop, spun up into a psychedelic orbit easing into successive tracks from Lush’s dreamy album, Split. Float through space with soft acoustic guitar and honey vox. Sent off with some quirk from The Velvet Underground and a promise from The Beatles for more soon. I was on the east coast and missed her extra while putting this one together. Our relationship was already long distance but I felt the extra miles.
E3/E4
I was on a tear and these blend together. Symmetry. A song from her art. Getting to know each other better. Another two successive songs from the same album, which some might decry as being against the rules. The only rule is love. Also, adding ”The Turnpike Down” without what comes next would be a terribly blown opportunity while trying to woo a girl. Van Morrison. Dusty Springfield. My favorite B-side of The Breeders, a cover actually. Another song that reminds me of Amy Chambers and Tim Gately. Rest peacefully, dears. You are honored in our home. Another song by Jeff Buckley, who also died too young.
E5
The only mix I ever offered to preview before it was finished. She loves surprises and was vehemently opposed. To start, Laika at last! Sounds Of The Satellites is the soundtrack of my earlier time in San Francisco, 1997-2000. Nostalgia of those years and then beyond, oh the magic and pain I discovered there. Margaret Fielder sings, “If I could pull the nerves from my skin, I would.” The last ‘d’ skips and trails off into audio space.
New Order jolts us out of Laika Land, followed by some make out music, ending with an Elastica build-up banger. Wait for it…
E6
A ride home surprise after a lovely weekend in Point Reyes Station full of great food and music. Audacious was my intent leading off with the band I ended with last time. It woke her up, and a fierce attraction filled the car. Powerful 90s college radio warmth, a happy-sounding sad song, a song sung in Italian and another that could be about a character from one of her stories.
E7
A Birthday mix. Sounds of high school in the 1990s and songs influenced by them. We grew up in parallel one town over without crossing paths until soon after high school. She, along with her boyfriend at the time, starred in my student film the year I went to college at Columbia. Was it 1995? We met at a bagel place to plan the shoot and with a straight face I told them that I didn't make bad films (I’d made two). So we started working on a morose tale called “Sadness is 6’ of Earth,” the results of which we take comfort in, for many different reasons.
She dressed kind of preppy to shoots (and claims now it was preppier than usual). No The Cure or Veruca Salt t-shirts. Afterwards, they went their separate way and I went mine. And here we are many years later after so much accident and intention. I loved that she already knew the last song, Earlies.
E8
This one took a while, during a time of extreme anxiety. I called her every morning on the walk to work. She listened and was kind and helped me through. She has the golden empathy of a Mother. Somber beginnings and tides, try-to-forget songs and a loud “Get me outta here!” song at the end.
E9
Inspiration: let’s get this party started, and by party I mean early morning haze at Disney World with the Georgia/Florida Zapatas (and not quite a million other people), sniping a Rise of the Resistance slot on the app soon after the attraction opened. Shoulder-to-shoulder getting in. So many people. Light gritting of teeth progressed to medium gritting of teeth. Fifteen minutes later we stumbled off the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster with dumb ear-to-ear smiles and the magic was in full force. The next day, the same ride got stuck towards the end for a while and she got very anxious while locked in. I took her hand in mine and assured her everything would be alright.
I can’t remember a song I was more excited to add to a mix than Bjork’s Isobel. It just fit perfectly. Also, Elizabeth's only mix to feature an Aerosmith song. I guess that’s not true actually, considering the E3/E4 cover.
E10
80s Double Album Alert: Poppy and Punky. A number of songs could go either way but whatever. The biggest surprise was how much she loved the first song of Poppy after not expecting to. Music can be sneaky like that.
E11
Road trip to NorCal with the girls mix. We had fun driving up and down all the SF hills. They made me drive around again to do the drop on Gough Street near Jefferson Square Park. The 80s still had me in their grip (do we ever truly escape?) from E10, which shows in the end.
E12
We gave each other mixes around this time. They both started with Just Like Heaven. So gross.
E13
This was supposed to be our engagement mix, but I dragged my feet and the mixes must go on. Thirteen songs I started collecting years earlier just in case I met someone I didn’t think I knew yet. Turns out I already did.
Cover art by Frankie Navarro
E14
Another trip home to IL. Cat Power, lift this plane into the air! L.A. Witch and Siouxisie, get us to a smooth cruising altitude. Another song I found through Zoe. Another that reminds me of the cold midwest winter. End with a final glimpse into a mirror. She told me she liked the first and last songs the most.
E15
On the previous trip to Chicagoland to visit family, Elizabeth and I had the best time listening to and singing “Two of Us” by The Beatles while driving around in the car. I surprised her with E15 at Burbank Airport for our next trip home. The Let It Be version where John exclaims, "'I Dig a Pygmy', by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids...Phase One, in which Doris gets her oats!" was first as the take off song. She proceeded to look at me like a piece of meat. The rest is all 60’s and 70s.
E16
New and local to start, a two-person band and shoegaze descendants. One song in common with our cat Ivy’s in-progress mix, in a series of others with ultrasonic beginnings. To end, into a Calgon-filled tub I send her.
E17
It’s difficult to calculate how much time I’ve spent on e17. Listening to their music, filling holes in my personal music library, finding a particular song that I love and listening to it eighty times in a row, doing research on composition and meaning, reading lyrics, considering her taste, adding songs, changing song order, etc.
The challenge was extreme. The mix would be her take off and plane/train music on a trip to London, Edinburgh and Liverpool. The Beatles mix. It had to cater to our own tastes and bond, yet try to include many of what are considered their greatest and most important songs. And not just get the transitions right, but really make them shine, and include some sense if not rule of linearity.
Some time after take off she was listening and at one moment I could see her heart strings get pulled as she sang along, “If I give my heart to you…I must be sure from the very start…” Elizabeth, so talented at being happy.
Everyone should check in with The Beatles periodically. They teach us about music and ourselves. The final version of E17 has 71 songs running 3 hours and 16 minutes.
E18
I was heading out of town so I decided to surprise her (and the girls) with a mix for their dinner on my way out the door. “E18” with an arrow pointing down is still drawn in marker on our kitchen tile backsplash where I had the iPod set up on the speaker. Bon Scott really was one of the best frontmen of all time. Also a brief harkening back to E1 and E3. At the end, a song with a secret between her and I.
E19
A pre-show highway drive time mix on our way to see The Black Angels and The Dandy Warhols. The girls’ first time seeing a headliner for the second time on two different album tours. The Black Angels were awesome as usual. I wish they had played Indigo Meadow for Zoe. The Dandys were more jammy than in the past, but fun. Other family concert highlights: The Breeders, Depeche Mode, DIIV, Beach House, John Williams, Violent Femmes, The Raveonettes, Jane's Addiction, The Psychedelic Furs, The Jesus & Mary Chain.
E20
The New York mix for our 2024 spring break trip with the girls. Every song by a band from New York, or recorded there, or a New York-related album cover, etc. I was nicknamed “Mr. Toe” due to my injury. But I kept walking, because that’s what you make teenagers do in NYC.
E21
Another Burbank Airport surprise for our recent trip to Las Vegas. A cacophony of twisting sounds. Pointed subject matter. Vegas baby.
E22
In progress, I assure you.