Goodbye to my cassette tapes

I threw out my cassette tapes tonight.

It's been a long time coming. I had been carting them around in my old car, which had a cassette deck, and the tapes were fabulous little nostalgia packets. The car is no more, having been supplanted by Sweet Potato, a car with an iPod-ready glove compartment.

That's clearly a sign.

I have 4,000 songs on my iPod, which is way more than I ever had on all of the cassettes I've owned. I have one semi-functional cassette player, in the stereo cabinet next to my computer. I can't remember the last time I used it. Most of my music comes out of my computer these days.

Okay, so, then, why is this such a big deal with the tapes? Nostalgia, maybe. But the tapes are real. I can remember staying up past my bedtime in 1982 to record The Who's (first) farewell concert, broadcast live from Toronto. I recorded it all, on one gray and one black TDK cassette, and I scrawled labels on them.

Now, 27 years (!) later, they don't sound so good. I'm not a scientist, but I know that cassettes house long, thin pieces of plastic, coated with magnetic metal bits. I know that these things deteriorate over time. Cassettes lose the high frequencies first. Sometimes the cases warp, and the pitch of the music ebbs and flows. All this means they're not the best listening now. The tapes are gone. We'll see how CDs and iPods hold up.

I had two cases of tapes that I threw out without even looking. I knew that if I looked, they'd be spared, only to sit for a few more years before this ritual would be repeated. There were some loose ones, so I had to look. I started a list of albums I need to get to replace the tapes: The Queen Is Dead, Californication, Pump, Rastaman Vibration, Rumor and Sigh.

I'd already set aside some other tapes: my college radio show with my old friend Chip (who promptly disappeared after graduation), and a couple of mix tapes from an ex-girlfriend. These are totems, talismans, tickets to parts of my past. Sure, I could copy them, digitize them, warts and all, and put them onto my iPod, right next to that song by Moxy Fruvous that I downloaded last night. But it wouldn't be the same. These are not just the songs, but THE tapes. They've moved with me--aged with me, too.

(I keep my old record albums for a similar reason. But that's for another blog post.)

The blue box below where I'm typing just flashed: "Save Now." This blog is saved. As are some of my tapes.

Having a birthday that ends in "oh" this year has a lingering effect. I've collected lots of things in this life. I'm looking back and ahead right now. I guess life is like this tape ritual, sorting out, setting aside, throwing out. I have a small house and a crowded mind. Some space is a good thing. I'm blogging now, choosing words, maybe reaching for some of these worldly analogies and metaphors from the clutter around me. But, saving and letting go seems like a good m.o. for now.

Off to bed, and my ritual of music before sleep. It's much easier with that iPod.