when i was ten i was MAJORLY in love with a boy who was 19. well semi-majorly. my actual love resided with luke goss, who i was sure i would marry and have thirteen babies with and we would live in a house decked out in those glass bricks everywhere, backlit. and venetian blinds. but yeah, i was semi-MAJORLY in love with this 19 year old boy.

i was a regular lolita.

except for how he basically had no idea i existed. he was the son of a family friend. and HANDSOME. although i couldn't for the life of me describe him now in any great detail, he was basically tall, dark and handsome.

he told someone, while i was in the room, that when he turned 21 he was going to use the birthday money to buy a motorcycle.

he also thought margaret urlich was a fox. which was a knife through my tender heart. so i learned the moves from the escaping video. and asked my grandfather if he could leave me enough in his will to buy a cropped leather jacket (as an aside my grandfather said no, because he thought margaret urlich was too exposed).

anyway, at christmas my dreams basically came true because instead of totally ignoring me, he gave me the mix tape from his car to listen to. i see now it was probably just to get me to leave him alone for 45 minutes. but to me it was the christmas miracle. and he left it behind. and i hid it away, listening to it on my immidation walkman, secretly, at every opportunity. and to secure the tape i even broke off those little tabs at the top - so i didn't accidentally tape over it.

i had mostly forgotten about the mix tape - which was THE GREATEST MIX TAPE OF ALL TIME - until the other day when i was brainstorming what new material to add to chelsea clinton (my american ipod).

since then i have attempted to recreate it. i am failing. so far there are only two songs i remember.

the first is ZAPPs "i want to be your man". now, the version i can find on the internets is (i am sure) different from the mix tape. the song is basically a slow jam, but the synths and special voice effects elevate it to the boogiest slow jam ever. i hope someone proposes to me using that song.

the second, though, is actually my favourite. robert palmer's "i didn't mean to turn you on".


i know what you're thinking. and yes. it is actually even better than you remember. i haven't decided what my favourite part is, but i think over all it is robert palmer's sexy sexy voice. and the lyrics full stop but especially the part "why should i (pause) feel gulity cos i won't give, guilty cos i won't give in (pause) i didn't mean to turn you on". also i am watching the video clip quite a bit in down time. there is a link here. basically identical to other videos of his in this period (c. 1988/89).

i am certain that these were the two best songs on the tape, but together amount for at the most ten minutes. which leaves 35 minutes. if you made a mix tape in 1988, and you put zapp and robert palmer on it, what else would you have included?

anyway, as a postscript the semi-MAJOR love of my life went on to a life of drug related crime. i never got my cropped leather jacket, and my crush on luke goss morphed into a crush on brandon walsh. robert palmer dueted with ub40. and zapp faded into oblivion. sometimes, in my darker hours, i miss the eighties so bad.