Hi there. The new Mouse & the Mixtape is up. Check it out. We’ve got a new embedded mp3 player up so you can stream the whole tape from the comfort of your own chair (though the actual comfort of said chair depends on you. So don’t come crying to us when your backside is sore).

Anyways, we like you, and we hope that, like us, you like the music that we liked last month.

This is a historic month. 3 years ago we made our very first Mouse & the Mixtape. Though it never made it on to the Mixtape Archive it was an important month for us. We’ve been tracking our favourite songs (and memories in songs), for three years now. Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy this month’s installment. See ya.

Mouse and The Mixtape // Ocotber, 2008

Look to your right. That’s what we’ve been working on this week. Hope you like it.

Oh, sweet February. What memories you contain. An amazing trip to Big Bear: Ice cream in the ville, which was milled. An Irish pub and an unwatched football game of dubious import. A little too much beer to accompany a (pretty-closed to) all night game of Hand and Foot. Two new friends smoking pipes around a fire, talking of years gone by. A trip up North: Wine. A game of celebrity with inappropriate names, gestures, and outbursts. Wine. A frog on a bench. Wine. The Sasquatch winery and a man with two fists. Wine flavored chocolate. Wine. The Rio Bravo: The restaurant. The band. A day spent with good friends making good sounds. And we moved towards Lent: A change in attitude. A seriousness. A Sadness. A brief moment in time to contemplate the weight of it all, and to properly balance the utter joy to follow.

What a great month. Here’s to the next.

February, 2007 Mouse & the Mixtape

I know it’s sappy. I know it’s overrated. I know that it’s a holiday based on a saint that had nothing to do with love, except perhaps losing his head (literally). I know it’s very origin is shady and it has been taken over by the companies that make gamble chocolates and greeting cards.

But we can take it back. Let’s tell someone we love them. Let’s feel good about the fact that we are loved. Let’s get to know each other a little bit better. And what better way to do that than through a little mixtape, made from me to you.

Mouse & the Billionaire Valentine’s Day Mixtape Or Fourteen for the 14th

1. Time After Time – Chet Baker mp3

This is, hands down, my favorite Chet Baker song, and probably one of my favorite songs of all time. If I could have anyone’s voice it would be his. I would walk in to a club, grab a glass of scotch and the nearest microphone, and bring the entire place to tears with my smoky effortlessness.

2. Naked as We Came – Iron & Wine mp3

Sam Beam’s morbidly perfect little song about rainy mornings laying in bed and finishing off your life with the one you love gets me every time

3. You Go to My Head – Billy Holliday mp3

The idea that love intoxicates, hits you “like the kicker in a julep or two.” Yeah, I buy it.

4. Steadier Footing – Death Cab for Cutie mp3

I first heard this simple, brief song a few weeks after this very thing happened to me.

5. Sea of Love – Cat Power mp3

Oh sweet Chan. Like the pied piper with an autoharp, enticing us to jump headfirst into the next relationship we find. Thanks for not letting us down.

6. La La Love You – Pixies mp3

Shake your butt, but not too hard. Indeed. This song captures the overwhelming first months of romance, where all you manage is a little whistle and maybe an “I love you” or 10.

7. Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits – Magnetic Fields mp3

Err..

8. Sweetalk – Billy Collins mp3

Comparing your lover to the sunlight of Edward Hopper might seem like a bad idea, but it isn’t.

9. Words of Love – Buddy Holly mp3

Buddy’s songs of new love make sense when you realize he was only 22 when he died. Imagine if he had been around to write a few more.

10. In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel mp3

One of the most enduring images in modern cinema is trenchcoat-wearing Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) holding up that boom-box in the rain (though I prefer Mark Ruffalo’s mustachioed attempt from Safe Men).

11. Aspidistra Files – Stars mp3

“All the umbrellas in London couldn’t hide my love for you.” It took me three months to find this song that L. would sing throughout the day. It was worth it.

12. Save the Last Dance for Me (Demo) – Harry Nilsson mp3

I know this isn’t actually the song Jesse and Robyn had their first dance to, but it always makes me think about it. It reminds me of Robyn in a Dodger’s jacket, Jesse awkwardly swaying, the oblivious smile on both of their faces, and the happy tears in my eyes.

13. I Believe (When I Fall in Love it Will Be Forever) – Stevie Wonder mp3

While this song played in the closing credits of High Fidelity (I know another John Cusack movie, I’m sorry), I realized she was not the girl for me, but that there was one out there, and I would find her.

14. More Pretty Girls Than One – Woody Guthrie mp3

And, lastly, for those who may not have someone to spend the day with today, fear not. Woody knows how you’re feeling, but he insists “There’s more pretty gals than one. More pretty gals than one. Every town I ramble ’round, more pretty gals than one.”

Download the album art – pdf.