The Parent Remix

I like burning CDs for people. Even better, I like people asking me to burn them CDs. It's a way for be to communicate some part of myself to someone else in a way I couldn't just by having a conversation with them. It's like this blog — or yelling at people on the sidewalk when I'm driving my car. So when my mom asked me if I could burn her a CD — see, she was getting tired of the CDs I helped her burn three years ago — I took the job very seriously.

I actually started while I was on vacation. While train and plane and rental car took me over and around the geography of the Great Down Under, I had my head buried in my iPod. "Hey, iPod," I said. "List all the songs you have alphabetically so I might scroll through them, one-by-one, and listen to each so that I might find some appropriate for my mother's ears. And then I will employ your heretofore under-utilized On-The-Go feature to add these songs to a playlist that I might one day burn to an iridescent disc."

And that's what happened.

I finally reached the end of the alphabet two or three days ago. (It was the Cranberries' "Zombie," by the way.) I picked over the songs that didn't belong and I ended up with two whole CDs. A little whitewashed, sure, but this is my mother I'm talking about. Not one for daring, risky sounds, my mom. Thus, you'll have to forgive me for being yet another person putting James Blunt into musical rotation. All in all, they're mishmashes of the more genial pop songs to come out in the past few years, the "Garden State" soundtrack and the most mom-friendly I could find from the alt country subgenre — that being the only classification of music I listen to that my mom could actually be able to stand.

"Mom Mix 1"

1. The Rolling Stones - "She's a Rainbow"
2. Ben Folds - "Landed"
3. Damien Rice - "The Blower's Daughter"
4. Cake - "Let Me Go"
5. Loretta Lynn and Jack White - "Portland, Oregon"
6. Mozella - "Can't Stop"
7. Ben Folds Five - "Brick"
8. The Postal Service - "Such Great Heights"
9. Suzi Quatro - "Stumblin' In"
10. Aimee Mann - "Video"
11. Kinks - "Picture Book"
12. Holly Golightly - "Walk a Mile in My Shoes"
13. Jon Brion - "Knock Yourself Out"
14. Johnny Cash - "One"
15. When in Rome - "The Promise"
16. Cathy Dennis - "Waterloo Sunset"
17. Chris Isaak - "I Believe"
18. The Cure - "Friday I'm in Love"
19. Electric Light Orchestra - "Livin' Thing"
20. Loretta Lynn - "High on a Mountain Top"
21. The Rolling Stones - "Ruby Tuesday"

And then there's "Mom Mix 2"

1. Elliott Smith - "Memory Lane"
2. James Blunt - "You're Beautiful"
3. Johnny Cash and Don Henley - "Desperado"
4. Loretta Lynn - "Van Lear Rose"
5. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - "Rise Up With Fists!"
6. Chris Isaak - "Please"
7. Madness - "It Must Be Love"
8. The Polyphonic Spree - "Hold Me Now"
9. Nick Drake - "One of These Things First"
10. Roy Orbison - "I Drove All Night"
11. The Postal Service - "Nothing Better"
12. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - "The Charging Sky"
13. Simon and Garfunkel - "The Only Living Boy in New York"
14. Yo La Tengo - "Here Comes My Baby"
15. Ryan Adams - "Where the Stars Go Blue"
16. Van Morrison - "Everyone"
17. Shawn Colvin - "You and the Mona Lisa"
18. Ben Folds Five - "Annie Waits"
19. Cake - "Tougher Than It Is"

I don't know what I like better: making my mother listen to a band called "Madness" or putting Johnny Cash and When in Rome back-to-back on a mix.