Posted on 10 Comments

Sometimes Breakable

Before I say anything else: Penny, if you like surprises, stop reading here!

New CD cover

I really like the way this image turned out.  It’s the cover for a new mix CD I made.  Penny and I like to exchange music from time to time – she’s introduced me to some excellent tunes (including one that I really wanted to include in this mix, until I realized I’d gotten it from her in the first place)!

It’s been a long time since I made a mix.  Thinking back, the last one was in February of 2007.  It’s not like me to go more than a couple of months without cranking out a new CD, but I guess I just haven’t been moved in that direction recently.  Or, when I have, I just haven’t felt the songs coming together cohesively.  I like my mixes all to have a “feel” to them and to flow well from one song to the next.

One of the most enjoyable parts of making a CD for me, is the cover.  My old way usually involved me hunting for something appropriate via a Google image search, and then modifying it to fit my needs.  This time around, I have flickr.  And a library of my own photos.

Wordle for new CD

So I made my mix, and was ready for a cover, but before I could choose a photo, I needed a name for the compilation.  I decided it would be fun to go to  wordle.net and enter the chorus lyrics for every song in the playlist.  As it turns out, this was as much of a time-consuming PITA as you might think.  But the ability to see the most highly-recurring words in cloud form was helpful to me.  I played around with the controls, regenerated the cloud a few times, and finally had an image I was happy with.  And the image told me to call the CD “Sometimes Breakable.”  Which really seemed to fit.

My shadow as the waves come in

There are a couple of standout “thoughtful” songs on this disc – more than I intended when I set out to make it – and there are certainly themes of brokenness in a few of the songs.  Considering some of the places I’ve been since my last compilation, it’s not entirely surprising to find some of those songs creeping onto the playlist.  I have my moments of feeling fragile.   And although they are fleeting, sometimes I do feel breakable.

This image of my shadow by the ocean felt like a good one to use for the cover.  It seemed introspective, without being dark or unhappy.  While there is a thoughtful vibe to some of the songs on this disc, I don’t think it’s sad, or even too mellow.  There’s plenty of upbeat to counter the quiet.

I cropped this image to a square, overlaid the wordle image on top at 50% opacity, darkened the edges, and gave it a treatment that I designed a while back to look like Picnik‘s cross process function.

Making the cover

I was hoping to find a way to share my CD’s playlist with you here, but I haven’t found a good way to embed a playlist that is able to play every single song on the list and in the order I want them to play.  Project Playlist is unable to find some of the songs I need, and last.fm playlists can only play in shuffle mode.  Using either one of those options would ruin the whole flow of the music.  So, for now I’m just including the song list, and linking to the songs on last.fm, where many of them are available for listening.  And If anyone has any more elegant solutions to sharing playlists, please let me know! [as of April 2014, you can listen via 8tracks.com – the player is at the end of the post. Enjoy!]

  1. neapolitan bridesmaid by tarkio
  2. in the aeroplane over the sea by neutral milk hotel
  3. beautiful child by rufus wainright
  4. modern inventions by the submarines
  5. breakable by ingrid michaelson
  6. new soul by yael naim
  7. 1234 by feist
  8. why do you let me stay here by she & him
  9. trouble by over the rhine
  10. anne by broken records
  11. dandelion by antje duvekot
  12. philosophia by the guggenheim grotto
  13. cleanse song by bright eyes
  14. side by travis
  15. too early to say by the innocence mission
  16. even a child by crowded house
  17. pineapple head by natalie imbruglia
  18. box full o’ honey by duran duran
  19. boy with a coin by iron & wine
  20. painting by chagall by the weepies
  21. sometimes by hooverphonic
  22. worry about you by ivy
  23. a place in time by amanda abizaid

Twin CDs

Sometimes Breakable from lclarke522 on 8tracks Radio.

So there you have it: Sometimes Breakable – a brand spankin’ new CD mix, ripe to be listened to and shared.  I think the sharing is the best part.  Well, aside from making the cover, that is…

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Posted on 10 Comments

10 thoughts on “Sometimes Breakable

  1. There was no spoiler alert on your Flickr stream, which I saw first. No problem, and you’re way ahead of me. Unless you want your cover CROCHETED (don’t tempt me, missy), it’ll get made after Thursday morning. I might do the wordle thing too–so they match! Mostly because it’s a genius way to get a title. What did you count as chorus lyrics?

    The mix is coming together fine (but I just pulled Neutral Milk Hotel from it, though–same song! GMTA). Might be some more booty-shaking tunes on mine, but I’ve got some strange quiet interludes in place too, so far anyway. And Scandinavians. We’ll see how it all turns out.

    See what Penny has been blogging about: No sleeveless blouse is safe now….

    1. For chorus lyrics, if it wasn’t obvious by looking at them, I just chose the phrases that were either most often repeated, or seemed the most important.

      How funny that we not only both picked an obscure band like NMH, but we picked the same song, too!

      Oh, and I have Scandinavians, too – Broken Records is from Sweden.

      Now, to remember to actually put the disc in the mail…

  2. That is fabulous! Thanks for showing us how you made it!

  3. Wow Lisa, this is amazing! Penny is very blessed to have such an incredibly thoughtful friend as you. Thanks for sharing how you created this.
    I recently received an iPod and am still trying to figure out that whole playlist thing. I remember buying a record as a teenager because I like one song on the record. With the ability to just get the individual songs I like and put them all together in a playlist….wow…a whole new world is opening up to me!

    See what Karen has been blogging about: My last beaded journal page is done

    1. Oh, I get as good as I give in this case! Penny has sent me some really great mixes over the years, not to mention artistic covers.

      Have fun with that ipod – I’ve been making playlists since I first laid my hands on a cassette player 🙂

  4. I made a wordle but it wasn’t as revelatory as yours–so I collaged you a cover instead, the old-fashioned way. (Nell had a sleepover friend last night, so I was up later than usual, and played at the paper table to pass the time.) I’ll scan and post it later.

    See what Penny has been blogging about: No sleeveless blouse is safe now….

  5. Just a note… that’d be http://wordle.net not .com 🙂
    That’s a gorgeous cover… I love it! And I’ll be looking for some of that music too – I’ve got 8mgs of space on my ipod to fill 😀 Thanks for sharing!!!

    See what wendy has been blogging about: Brewing

    1. Whoops! Duly noted, and fixed. Thanks 🙂

  6. what a great idea! I’ve discovered Wordle about a month ago and love it…but haven’t done anything this creative with it.

  7. […] I finished and mailed off the mix CD promised to Lisa C.  Here’s the cover: CD cover for Lisa […]

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