This mixtape is called The Soundtrack One

“I had to sort through all the Romeo and Juliet songs you hid so now you need to write the blog.”

Picture this, reader: having already nailed one mixtape, you and your beloved spouse come up with another idea. Soundtracks. This prompt turns out to be wildly difficult because how do you, famously an over thinker, narrow down the choices? There are so many incredible soundtracks with so many extremely solid jams from Baz Luhrmann alone, never mind the dang Marvel Cinematic Universe. How can a lady such as yourself choose between, say, “Young and Beautiful” and “$100 Bill” and “Back to Black”? AND THAT’S JUST THE GREAT GATSBY SOUNDTRACK.

The answer? You don’t.

Close your eyes and imagine you and your spouse are in the garage, trading movie music tracks between sips of Jameson and soda water, periodically pausing so he can go inside to tuck the kids into bed/check on the dogs/go to the bathroom. It’s here, reader, in this interregnum*, this pause in which you are alone in the garage that you act. Let your nimble, drunken fingers fly over the keyboard and play one or even two more songs on a soundtrack from which you could not choose only a single bop! Larson may have left the room but he did not stop the recording and you have all of Apple music and YouTube available for you! Sneak in as many tunes as you can!! Let him figure it out when he sits down to listen to the audio several weeks later!!!! You are a sneaky genius and you regret nothing!!!!!

Anyway this explains the quotation above, which is the entirety of an email Larson sent me when he asked me to write this and also why I am writing this. Hope you love it!

Serena Palumbo - September, 2022

(*Ed. note: this is not really the correct use of interregnum but it’s a fun word and I don’t get to use it often enough.)