My Mix Tape From The 80s

My first job was at McDonalds when I was 14 and 9 months. That was the age that you could get a job in Australia in the 80s. My parents were divorced, probably the first amongst the parents at my school, but no-one seemed to care. A nurse, a full-time working mother, she couldn’t afford to give us much pocket money so we made do with what we had and since I loved a good bargain and a mooch around second hand clothes stores it didn’t really phase me. The only thing I missed was having my own tape player.

My best friend Jules had one. She would record songs off the radio and make me mixed tapes which I could listen to in our living room. You would often hear part of the radio DJs introduction in-between songs because it was so hard to rewind the tape and get it in the exact position to record the next song.

Not too long after I started my less than $3 an hour job at McDonalds I worked as many hours as possible to save to buy my own double tape recorder. I can still remember the day I bought it home in its long box and plugged it in. I had a few tapes from the library and my mixed tapes. I lay on my bed and listened to beats from 80s while I stared at the dreamy eyes of the boys from Pseudo Echo. Don’t worry if you don’t know who they are they weren’t big outside Australia.

The purchase of my very own tape recorder was about the same time that I found out that we were moving to another state, over 24 hours drive away. How was I going to see my best friend?

Devastated my friend and I decided we would do everything we could to try and stop the move. Our first attempt and disastrous failure was when we tried to set my mother up with another friends’ dad. Two single parents, surely they would be a perfect match? I look back on it now and wonder what I was thinking?

Next came the begging. Two friends imploring my mother to let me move in with my friend and finish the last two years of school. We had read about this exact scenario is the Sweet Dreams books we read. It always worked in those. Before we spoke to my mother, my friend asked her parents if I could move in for the duration of the next two school years. Surprisingly, they said yes. But when we approached my mother it was a firm, no.

Oddly about six years later when I moved back to that town for a couple of years, I lived with my best friends’ parents for a couple of months in her old room. It wasn’t the room that we would have initially lived in. They had since built their own house and a separate wing for her to live in. Things circle around eventually, somehow.

Devastated as only a teenager can be, my friend and I decided to make a depression tape with songs to listen to when we were feeling sad. My younger self was already wise to healing powers of music, but my adult self forgot it for many years.

I found that tape a couple of years ago when I was going through old letters and year books. Here are the songs that made it onto the ‘depression tape’, each song and artist neatly written on the cover. There are so many more songs that could have made its way into my ears, but I only had 60 minutes worth of space and only so much patience.

• Time after Time - Cyndi Lauper
• Is this Love - Whitesnake
• Wouldn’t it be good - Nik Kershaw
• The Flame - Cheap Trick

It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that my music taste expanded beyond pop music and I rediscovered Cheap Trick and other 70s music.

• I don’t want to live without you - Foreigner
• Alone - Heart

A couple of years later I discovered the music video and the song and I were reunited.

• St Elmo’s Fire, Man in Motion - John Waite

I listened to the soundtrack from St Elmo’s Fire so much that I wore the tape out. The movie sits in my top 10 80s movies, along with The Breakfast Club.

• Broken Wings - Mister Mister
• Glory of Love by Peter Cetera

Another classic movie soundtrack song. I discovered this while watching Karate Kid II.

• Lost in your eyes - Debbie Gibson

The Britney Spears of the 80s. I loved any song from Debbie Gibson. She had the true 80s fashion sense with hats and white boots.

• The Lady in Red - Chris de Burgh
• Everytime you go away - Paul Young
• How am I supposed to love without you - Michael Bolton

I cringe now at my teenage crush on Michael Bolton. My brother had a friend who looked a lot like him and I found myself swooning after him. I’m sorry A.

And of course the final and iconic 80’s love song was Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler. When I hear this now it takes me straight back to school dances, long summers and my first kiss.