My Life In 35 Songs, Track 26: “Song for the Road” by David Ford

My Life in 35 Songs
Craig Manning

Now I don’t lightly use words like ‘forever,’ but I will love you ‘til the end of today…

Do teenagers today still make mixtapes?

I’m using that term loosely, mind you. I know there can’t be more than a few living souls on the planet who still go through the painstaking steps of cobbling together handmade cassette tape compilations to tell their crushes how they feel. Hell, I can’t even say that I’ve ever made a true mixtape, in that classic analog sense. But I came of age long enough before the streaming era that I still experienced the sensation of trading music in physical formats – usually on burned CDs, though occasionally via USB thumb drives, and sometimes even by way of data DVDs.

Does the mixtape live on in any form today? Is it a Spotify link? A YouTube playlist? A collection of TikTok videos? I ask because “Song for the Road” by David Ford is a classic, all-timer mixtape song, and I wonder if classic, all-timer mixtape songs can even still exist anymore.

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of the mixtape. In a lot of ways, this entire series is just an ambitious, life-spanning, 35-song mixtape. It doesn’t hurt that three of my four favorite artists of all time – Butch Walker, Andrew McMahon, and Jimmy Eat World – have all written songs about mixtapes. “You gave me the best mixtape I have” Butch sings in his, before adding “And even all the bad songs ain’t so bad.” “This is my mixed tape for her; it’s like I wrote every note with my own fingers,” goes the punchline of “The Mixed Tape,” the first-ever single from Andrew McMahon’s Jack’s Mannequin project; and in the Jimmy Eat World song, the note is pure regret: “Maybe we could put your tape back on/Rewind until the moment we went wrong.”

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Diane King – “Sky” (Song Premiere)

Diane King
Adam Grundy

Today is a great day to share an early listen to the new single from Diane King, called “Sky”. The song is the title track from King’s forthcoming LP, Sky, that hits all streaming services this Friday. This key song from Diane King reaches for the heavens and hits its intended feel with veteran ease. If you’re enjoying the single, please consider pre-ordering the new album of Sky here, and stay tuned for the full album stream later on this week.

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Interview: Foreign Air

Foreign Air
Adam Grundy

This past month I was able to schedule an in-person interview with Foreign Air before they played a headlining show at The Atlantis (venue directly next to the 9:30 Club). In this interview, I asked the band about the writing and recording process of their excellent third album, Such That I May Glow, that recently came out, and how they stay grounded given all the “noise” that’s dominating today’s news cycle. Such That I May Glow is up on all streaming services here.

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