Three Songs of the Week: I Heart 1993.

Look for a song of the week every Thursday. :)

Blind Melon--No Rain
Sloan--Underwhelmed
Living Colour--Bi

Having Rhapsody on the computer allows me to recreate long-defunct mix tapes, including one that I got for my birthday in 1993. I can even rewrite history and leave out the Belly song. I still have my irrational hatred of Tanya Donelly after all these years.

Anyway this mix was given to me by one Mr. Mike Sumner, who does not (thank goodness) have an easily Googlable name.

The summer after I graduated from High School, I lived at the Jersey Shore and worked at Great Adventure. There I met Mike. I was amazed to find myself sharing a foldout couch in Cranford, NJ with this beautiful man. He looked absolutely perfect for 1993—long fluffy Eddie Vedder hair, very tidy suburban grunge outfits. We had conversations about our Dr. Martens. We made out to Ween albums. We sang “Killing in the Name of” on amusement park rides.

At the end of the Summer, I went back to live with my dad in the suburbs of Syracuse, NY. Mike’s birthday is on September 4th and mine is on September 5th- it was a Saturday-Sunday just like this year. He came to visit me that weekend. We decided we should consummate the relationship on midnight between the birthdays. It almost didn’t happen because of some snit, but when we heard the first notes of “No Rain,” our hearts didn’t just melt, they sublimated. He was the first person I ever had sex with and loved at the same time.

It didn’t last very long after that weekend… he got to Rutgers and realized how many adventures were to be had, how many girls with purple hair and striped stockings were there, right in the same dorm. I took the Greyhound to New Brunswick for the official breakup/a Dead Milkmen show. Gave him back his teddy bear.

When I moved to Philadelphia a few months later, I called him unceasingly. On Aunt Connie’s advice, I actually said a Novena over him. It worked. He called and we went to a King Missile show on South St. We were friends for a bunch of years after that.

Anyway: