"It's Okay To Say No!" (Spring 1996)

Side 1

Seal-Fly Like An Eagle
Crucial Conflict-Hay
Pearl Jam-Jeremy
snippets of Tool's "Stinkfist" and Counting Crows-"...A Long December"

Side 2

Collective Soul-December
Tracy Bonham-Mother Mother
Aerosmith-Jamie's Got A Gun
Foo Fighters-This Is A Call
Sublime-Doin' Time

The picture above is indeed of the very first mixtape that I ever made in its current shape today. I was in 8th grade at the time and had long stopped receiving an allowance, due to a lackluster effort of my chores a few times the year before. Despite an improvement in my work ethic since, the topic of me getting money on a weekly basis somehow never came up again. This left me without many funds of my own, which I was content with at the time. I was properly cared for and I usually felt guilty about asking for anything unless it was my birthday or Christmas, but the fact still remained that I had no music that I owned for myself, except for a copy of Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill that my best friend at school dubbed for me.



It wasn't until my neighbor taught me how to dub over pre-recorded tapes that I was able to expand my collection. By simply sticking a rolled-up piece of toilet paper in the small indentations at the top of the cassette, I could bypass the write-protect tabs and record over anything. There were a few tapes from my stepsister's childhood that laid dormant in the basement, one of them with the title "It's Okay To Say No," which I assumed was about drug prevention but never bothered to find out. I had no guilt about using these cassettes since I was sure my teenage sister could have cared less about revisiting them and they were also my only option since recording over actual albums from the family's collection was out of the question.

I was mainly in need of a recordable tape because I wanted the Fugees' "Killing Me Softly" for my own. I always associate this tape with that song because I played it constantly and to this day it still remains one of my favorites. I was sprawled across the back seat of my stepmom's Lumina the first time I heard it and my eyes just circled around in puzzlement and joy at something so flavorful and effortless. I nearly wanted to cry along with the pain that Lauryn Hill felt because she made it seem so dire as it came through the speakers. "Killing Me Softly" remained on this tape for nearly a year until I finally bought a copy of The Score, and desperately in need of tape space, I recorded Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" over it.

At the beginning of the tape, I had originally recorded Brandy & Heavy D's take on Michael Jackson's "Rock Wit U" and another cover song, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" as done by Chantay Savage. Those two songs were very popular on WGCI at the time, one of Chicago's most popular stations and the leader in the urban music format, but I eventually recorded over them as I felt I could live without them. When you first play the tape, you can hear the first second of "Rock Wit U" and there are still about 10 seconds of "I Will Survive" left.

Although those songs are enjoyable, I still prefer their replacements, Seal's "Fly Like An Eagle," another cover song, although I didn't know it when I first heard it, and Crucial Conflict's "Hay." During this time, I felt that Seal could do no wrong. He had just come off his hugely successful second album, Seal—not to be confused with his debut, also titled Seal—and this single from the Space Jam soundtrack was just further proof to me that I had backed the right guy. The song itself, originally done by the Steven Miller Band, was more soulful than anything I had heard Seal done until that point, and for lack of a better word, it soared where as most of his other singles could be sort of a downer.

The following song, Crucial Conflict's "Hay," was absolutely essential to know if you lived on the West Side, where all four members hailed from. The group had some local success prior to breaking through nationally with "Hay" and it was a moment of pride for the hip hop loving youth of the city to see their video played on MTV and BET. I dubbed the song from my neighbor's CD single and although it didn't have any swear words, it was nice to have a superior sound quality to that of radio and all references to smoking left unedited. It was an easy decision to bump Chantay Savage in favor of them.





I'm pretty sure I recorded "Jeremy" later that year or perhaps early in the next. The song was already about four years old at this time, but you have to constantly remember that I did not have any music of my own for a long time. Any past MTV favorites were fair game in the new world of recording. How Tool's "Stinkfist" ended up on this tape is beyond me. I am a fan of the song, but I obviously recorded "Jeremy" over part of it and I was left with just the last verse and chorus of this song. It sounds pretty sloppy today and it was obvious that I was a kid just starting out experimenting with recording songs from the radio.

I can never think of a time when it's been cool to like Counting Crows, but I thought they made some pleasant adult contemporary rock for that era. Looking back, I can definitely hear the Bob Dylan and Van Morrison tones in their music. When done right, it's pretty hard to find much objectionable whenever someone borrows from those artists. I found other bands from that period more exciting, but with easygoing songs like "...A Long December," I would have just been trying too hard if I wanted to hate them.

I'm pretty positive that "...A Long December" and "December" were recorded the same night as "Rock Wit U," "I Will Survive" and "Killing Me Softly." Although I didn't know it at the time, but the meager little 20 minutes that the "It's Okay To Say No!" tape provided would not be enough for this growing addiction and it filled up quickly. I liked all of Collective Soul's singles up to that point, but "December" was probably my favorite. I remember being drawn to the end where the December refrain was first introduced. I was used to the typical verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus structure in most popular music, so the arrangement that Collective Soul used kept 13 year-old me coming back.



For songs I never heard on the radio, I would simply record the music video on television. My sister had an old boombox with a built-in mic that she hardly used and it came in handy for situations such as Tracy Bonham's "Mother Mother." From the time I first heard her growl the lines, "I'm hungry, I'm dirty, I'm losing my mind/Everything's fine" on an MTV Buzz Bin commercial, I knew I would love it. "Mother Mother" followed the soft/loud dynamics that were the trademark of a lot of alternative rock songs from the era and I ate it up. Today, I still find the angst here appealing and heartfelt.




"Jamie's Got A Gun" was another MTV mainstay that I was excited to hear on the radio and instantly pushed record when it came on. Before, I had only heard it on TV in the privacy of my room, so I can imagine there was a sudden burst of excitement to hear it elsewhere. I had never listened to a rock station before, so with my own radio, I felt a growing sense of independence that I never had before and could feel myself pulling further away from the involuntarily imposed listening habits of everyone in the household. It felt good to switch the dial whenever I wanted to. Another added benefit of listening to rock stations, as I've mentioned before, was the exposure to songs that didn't have a video. Once such track was Foo Fighters' "This Is A Call," which I thought would have been one of the best songs on MTV during that month if it had ever made it. I was still pretty shy about listening to rock stations loudly in the house during the day—for fear of anyone asking me why I would listen to such music—so I usually enjoyed these songs at night, laid in bed with the lights already out and the volume low, tapping my fingers and feet frenetically until I went to sleep. There are several rock songs from this period that I associate with the dark.



The inclusion of Sublime's "Doin' Time" might have been another song recorded in desperation of tape space. I can only imagine how much since its release to radio was a full year and a half after I started using this tape. I eventually bought the album which "Doin' Time" was on, so now a part of me wishes I could recall what song was in its place before since it would better recall that period of time in 1996 instead of sounding so fractured.