Christmas for Kate

Click image for playlist ..

Every year for the past many years I've prepared a CD "mix-tape" compilation for Kate of songs we like (or I think she should like) and that have some special significance to us — places we've been, bands we've seen, or important events of the year. I burn these CD's from iTunes playlists I've created of tunes from CD's and iTunes songs we've purchased and from YouTube videos I've cribbed into my iTunes library. For special friends, I sometimes burn a CD for them as well.

These days CD's are becoming more and more of an anachronism — our new car doesn't even have a CD player and finding CD-R's to burn is getting hard. And old burned CD's fade and then are no longer playable.

I've always wanted to share these playlists more widely. Doing so with physical CD's won't work. And, while I already share my iTunes playlists, that doesn't work for people who aren't on iTunes and even then doesn't work for tunes I've found elsewhere that are in my library but aren't public in iTunes.

My solution this year has been to publish these as YouTube playlists which you can find on my YouTube channel. Look for the the playlists "Xmas for Kate" with various versions from 2006 until today. It's an interesting study in the evolution of our musical tastes. If you happen to have similar tastes you might enjoy some of them.

While most of the songs I have on these CD's are also available on YouTube, some are not. E.g., there was a lovely version of "Crazy as a Loon" by Kurt Vile and friends (2020) that was only briefly available on YouTube after the John Prine tribute last year (see the trailer for "Picture Show: A Tribute to John Prine").

Unfortunately, there are some songs I just can't share with you.