Welcome to Monday Morning Mixtape, a PoYB Contributor-curated playlist of songs, made just for you at the start of each week.
"When There Is Nothing Left to Burn, You Have to Set Yourself on Fire"
Come gather 'round the bonfire with your Uncle Dwyer! Let's hear some good songs for and about the fire! Don't stand too close, that shit is HOT!!!
chosen by Dwyer
"Fire" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience
from Are You Experienced, 1967
I went camping once in my life, and it was just a horrible experience. But one of the things I learned was that you are supposed to say "I hate white rabbits" when the smoke from the fire is blowing in your face, and this is supposed to ward off the smoke. I also learned that it doesn't really work. —Gloria
"Fire" by Waxahatchee
from Saint Cloud, 2020
In the deep recesses of my brain, there was already a Fire Mixtape on the blog. Not MMM of course, but somewhere in the early days. I couldn't find anything. But there WAS a fire playlist on my YouTube account, which means I made it for some reason or another at some point. A couple more days and my brain revealed the memory of a calendar that I had made Pam for a Christmas many years ago, back when I used to make some homemade and heartfelt for my girlfriend. It was one of those 365-day calendars, and every page was a different "thing." Christ, what a production. I think one of them just had a link to the YouTube playlist for fire? Why was this important? Was it an inside joke or something? It's wild how many memories burn away in time.
Anyways, I didn't choose any songs from that playlist for this mixtape. Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" was on there! Oh, the humanity! That is the surest sign that that playlist was not for me, but instead was for someone else. Fucking Billy Joel, jesus fucking christ, that sick fuck.
Here are the songs that are on there (not including the four videos that are wiped from YouTube, no idea what they could've been).
- "Streets of Fire" by the New Pornographers
- "Prairie Fire That Wanders About" by Sufjan Stevens
- "This Wheel's on Fire" by the Band
- "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele
- "We Didn't Start the Fire" ugh fucking TERRIBLE
- "Fire Eye'd Boy" by Broken Social Scene
- "All Fires" by Swan Lake
I am writing this before anyone else submits any songs for this mixtape. I suppose time will tell if these songs make an appearance today. —Joe
"Burning" by the War on Drugs
from Lost in a Dream, 2014
What's a Dwyguy playlist without the fucking War on Drugs. I'm BUUUUUURRRRNIN'!!!!!! —Dwyer
"Racehorse" by Teenage Halloween
from Teenage Halloween, 2020
You ever notice how the police are way more competent at their jobs when they themselves are the victims? If someone breaks into your car and steals your shit, then, ah well, there's nothing they can do. If someone sets fire to a police car, however, then they're gonna track the culprit through their fucking Etsy account. Just something to think about, as you listen to one of the best young punk rock bands of the 2020s.
Fatter, Older has been stuck on a post about Teenage Halloween for 20 months now. Someone should revive that blog. —Joe
"Play with Fire" by the Rolling Stones
"Play with Fire" by the Rolling Stones
a single, 1965
If you keep fucking with people, you're gonna get burned! Or just don't get La Salle Friends drunk and ignite your hand in flames with a sparkler on New Years Eve. —Dwyer
"Streets of Fire" by Bruce Springsteen
from Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978
Complete opposite of chilling around a fire and drinking bourbon, but why not listen to one of Springsteen's angriest songs as he's navigating the emotional fire of turmoil and betrayal? —Dwyer
"A Little Time" by the Marked Men
from Fix My Brain, 2006
Back when this mixtape gambit started a thousand years ago, the EiC made the point (I think) that these mixtapes should speak for themselves, and that ideally the songs themselves should make whatever the theme of the week is apparent. I think that conceited has been kicked in the head, but in case it has not, I will say this: only poetry philistines will misunderstand why this song is here, only true people of culture with incredibly sexy bodies will shake their heads in recognition. —Nate
"Fire's Highway" by Japandroids
from Celebration Rock, 2012
Here's how you make a fire. The general idea is that you start as small as possible, and gradually add bigger and bigger material. You can't go right from ripped-up cardboard to a log. You do the cardboard, and let the cardboard burn some tiny twigs. You let the tiny twigs burn some slightly bigger twigs, and so on. You'll eventually get up to the logs. The other thing is the placement of the burning material. You gotta make sure that enough oxygen is getting in there. Stack it up with plenty of space, and don't be afraid to blow on it to add that oxygen.
This is how you do it in theory. In practice, I have no fucking idea. —Joe
"Eternal Flame" by the Bangles
from Everything, 1988
All the way back in October 2020, we read a book in book club that was more of a graphic novel, and it was about a guy that was obsessed with this song, and... other stuff happens, something with a beard that destroyed the world, I forget. I'm not good at reading books and I'm not good at retaining stuff from books that I read a while ago. But I remember music real good, and I remember listening to this song after reading this book, and getting it. Getting how you could get obsessed with it. More so that I get the idea of "obsession" than the idea of "the Bangles," but still. —Joe
"Friday Night" by Lily Allen
from Alright, Still, 2006
Check out Lily Allen's new album, West End Girl. This song isn't from it, but it has the word "fire" in it, and I mostly wanted to write about the album anyways. The album is one to make any person in a relationship quake in their boots. What if all your misdeeds were spread out for the world to hear them? I date people in small communities, and I worry that if I do the wrong thing, everyone will know about it. What if I'm famous one day and everyone knows I asked my wife for an open relationship because she moved to London and I need sex? I wouldn't like that.
But who knows? Art is art and the best artists take the facts of their lives and turn them into something much larger than an autobiography. We can assume that's what Lily Allen is doing here. Is it really an anti-open relationship screed? Was her ex-husband that bad? These questions are less important. Art needs to exist for art's sake. —Zach
"Jump into the Fire" by Harry Nilsson
from Nilsson Schmilsson, 1971
Gosh I love Nilsson. This song in particular. I might have first really heard of this guy because of JMK's 2020's non-2020 best albums list. Then I saw Goodfellas and was mesmerized by that climactic scene. That drum bridge, man. I thought about submitting this song for the Goodfellas mixtape week because of the needle drop, but I must have been in Chinese prison or something that week and indisposed, but here's a chance to bring it back around! —Sunny
"Fireflies" by Owl City
from Ocean Eyes, 2009
It's 2010 in Chatham, New Jersey. I sit in the Dunkin' Donuts every day, writing articles about the people around me. One day, I decide to write something about the Nepali man who works at the DD, a Sherpa who grew up in the shadow of Everest. He was born in a hut in Bumburi, a Sherpa village nestled deep into the Himalayas, and spent his childhood there, in the Nepalese countryside. There are no roads in the town. From the nearest road with cars, it takes two days to get to Bumburi, which is in the eastern part of the country. Through his connections, he was able to move to the U.S. with his wife, Lhakpa, where the two now work at the DD
Meanwhile, this song plays as the background, all the time, along with the song that goes like "na na na na every day, like my iPod's stuck in replay." I miss the '90s, yes, but I miss the early 2010s even more, I think. An Obama-era of innocence before we entered into our apocalyptic reality. —Zach
"Fire" by SiR
"Fire" by SiR
from Chasing Summer, 2019
I'm an Aries, which is a fire sign, but I've always been terrible with fire. I don't know how to build a fire, and I can barely put on a lighter to hold it up during a concert. What does it all mean? I have a fiery personality at times, but I hide it a lot. Fire signs are often BS, anyway; what matters more is the moons you were born under. That doesn't stop me from going to AstroTalk.com to check if Aries is compatible, romantically, with whoever I'm dating at the time. —Zach
"Fire on the Mountain" by Grateful Dead
from Shakedown Street, 1978
A few years ago, I was on a road trip in California, and we drove through an area that recently had a prescribed fire, which basically means that they intentionally light and monitor a fire. This actually helps to reduce the risk of wildfires since it cleans up the excess "fuel" sources like dead grass and shrubs and stuff. So interesting. The area looked absolutely devastated though. —Gloria
"Maybe I'll Burn My Life Down" by Militarie Gun
from God Save the Gun, 2025
Great album, this. It's nominally hardcore but this song kinda sounds like Dan Deacon attempting hardcore? And the other songs sound like other, different shit, all kinda sorta under the umbrella of hardcore but not enough that it would turn off people who are afraid of that. I know I don't usually use this space for recommendations, but here's one. I think I felt the compulsion to include a recommendation in this space after some good conversation under Super Ghostbusters regarding whether Record Club is or is not a music club. I view Puke on Your Birthday as a writing blog but maybe it would be more helpful if people got more music recommendations from me on here as opposed to just hearing me prattle on about any random useless shit. —Joe
"The Body Burned Away" by Songs: Ohia
"The Body Burned Away" by Songs: Ohia
from Ghost Tropic, 2000
Most calories I've ever burned: impossible to know, but likely running a 1/2 marathon or training for boxing in high school.
Most firewood I've ever burned: Likely high school again, a buddy of mine lived out in the sticks and used to throw enormous bonfire parties with giant, Wicker Man-level pyres.
Most bridges ever burned: I ghosted a freelance assignment more recently than I'd care to admit, that's a relationship I am unlikely to get back. —Nate
"Love Feels like Fire" by Four Tops
from Four Tops Second Album, 1965
What else feels like fire? Heartburn, though that hasn't been as much of a concern for me in sobriety, and is absolutely no concern at all when I'm off the cookies. My plantar fasciitis, which has been a concern pretty much all of 2025 and I can't fucking shake it, and now I dropped the ball and am gonna have a tough time scheduling an appointment at the podiatrist while I'm on probation at my new job. Hot buffalo wings, which are some of my favorite food, but I haven't had any in 2025, the one fucking New Year's resolution I've kept, mostly because I feel like shit the morning after I eat hot buffalo wings, like all dried out, akin to a hangover, which is not a feeling that felt like fire, but is nevertheless something I'd like to try to avoid. —Joe
"Burn Me I'm Made of Matches" by Caracara
from Summer Megalith, 2017
I think I'm pretty much done working the 12a-8a shift, which is good for my body (if not necessarily for my wallet). So, a reflection on the strangest part of working that shift: I was often fully asleep. Which is not as dangerous as it seems, since those child abuse calls aren't coming in hard and fast at two in the morning. It's not comfortable but I had a blanket-esque jacket and I wore my sunglasses to combat the harsh office lighting that cannot be turned off. The only risk was my computer shutting down while I slept, from inactivity, because if that happens then the call still comes in but I can't access it in time because I'm waking up and discombobulated and then have to log in again? Not possible. So I needed a way to keep my computer on. My go-to classic was putting on an eight-hour YouTube video of a fireplace, muted. I didn't need the fireplace for comfort, it was more utilitarian than anything. But the soothing visuals didn't hurt either. I got maybe three hours of a sleep per night, and never, during my brief run as a night shift goblin, had to deal with an emergency five seconds after being jolted awake. —Joe
"What It Is to Burn" by Finch
"What It Is to Burn" by Finch
from What It Is to Burn (bonus track), 2002
The solution to any first- or second-degree burn: stick whatever you have burned into a cup or pan or pot or whatever of ice-cold water, and swap that ice-cold water out as it becomes warm for as long as it takes for the burn to stop hurting. This has worked for every burn I have ever had, except for sunburn, which cannot be solved by anything but time and regret. One of my kids grabbed the hotpad of our drip coffee-pot when they were a toddler, their pain was the second-worst I have ever felt as a parent. We'll have to wait for another prompt to get into the worst feeling. —Nate
"There's a Bully in the Park and a Hero in My Baseball Bat" by the Morning Of
from Welcome Change, Goodbye Gravity, 2007
The bully: Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The hero: Miguel Rojas. The baseball bat: The one that Bo Bichette flipped away after he hit a home run that should have been the one that won the World Series. The park: The place where I go to cry, because a team I don't care about lost. The fire: We could start one, but we can't stop tonight.
That's the problem with sports. Once the fire is burning, it's hard to let it go, even if you want to not care anymore. —Zach
NEXT WEEK: "SONGS TO EAT ME OUT TO" — Don't believe the lies! The PoYB EiC rarely says "no" to any idea! (chosen by Brian)
17 comments:
Good morning, blog friends. Happy to start another week with y'all. QUESTION: Should we take a break on MMM on the Monday in between Christmas and New Year's? Or should this blog project live like Record Club lives: no breaks, not ever? I'm leaning toward the latter. I'm wondering if there's anything we can do to mix it up a little in the new year, beef this thing up, get people more involved, etc. Any ideas? Send 'em my way.
SONG ORDER: I divided the number of letters in the song title by the number of letters in the artist's name, and ordered the answers from lowest to highest.
Doing shit like that makes me sensitive to the "official" names of song titles and artists. Like, the first song is, definitively, performed by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, i.e. the band that Hendrix fronted with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell. But Spotify has the artist listed as just "Jimi Hendrix," which is fucked up, totally fucked in its attempt to erase the memory of one of the greatest rhythm sections of the classic rock era.
But there are other cases where I'm way more willing to amend dumb decisions made regarding "official names" in the 1970s. For instance, apparently Harry Nilsson's seminal 1971 album Nilsson Schmilsson was originally billed under the artist name "Nilsson." I think time has proven that stupid, and that we should consider the artist's name "Harry Nilsson."
I am not a true man of culture and thus do not know how the Marked Men's "A Little Time" fits this theme (the aforementioned Fatter, Older was no help in this regard). Time for an explanation!
I do think that it's nice to do mixtapes that allow some wiggle room to choose wide-ranging songs. Today's is a great example. I could look at the songs chosen and still guess the theme if I needed to. The Marked Men wouldn't change that. As long as there is a faith that not everyone is going completely off the rails every single time, then we should be good to go.
I was proofing this post and getting it ready to publish last night before we went to sleep and Pam saw the Lily Allen song and got all excited because she too has been listening to West End Girl on loop. She was like "what did Zach write about it?" and I drew a hard line, tell her that she needed to VISIT THE BLOG if she wanted to find out. Pam, if you are here, let Zach know what you think about Lily Allen!!!!!!
Shoutout to Dwyer for the theme and for submitting a few songs (we'll hit that minimum word count next time, buddy). I just realized this morning that "Dwyer" and "fire" rhyme. We could've done something with that.
I like how we ended the mixtape on a double dose of emo, I'd definitely like to know more about Finch and the Morning Of. Also should probably get around to listening to Grateful Dead's Shakedown Street at some point, that was fun. I like the Nilsson cut, and I liked the Stones B-side that I didn't realize I was familiar with until I heard it this morning.
I would say, don’t take a break for the holidays, but maybe make the theme known early. Do you think that in general that would work better for the mixtape? Similar to how you do the record club schedule
I appreciate this feedback. I think it's a good idea in theory. A couple things that give me pause.
1) I sometimes feel like I've reached my limit in terms of "bothering people" about the blog. Like I'm already attempting to and mostly failing at forcing people to participate in a few other blog activities, so the prospect of sending out an email asking someone to come up with a mixtape theme three weeks in advance feels like an approaching of my limit.
2) For Record Club, it used to be that the album wouldn't be announced at all until the Sunday morning write-up was published. The advance scheduling was an attempt on my part to boost participation. I would say that it has not achieved that goal.
All good stuff to consider, though! I appreciate your participation in this thing. I have had fun no matter how many songs are submitted or what the theme is, so I'm actually pretty proud of this thing so far, and am glad it's still going.
Time is the fire in which we burn, you potato-shaped inbread!
You can accuse me a lot of things, but you can't accuse me of knowing poetry.
Pam! I want to hear your take on West End Girl! - Zach
Gloria - curious which part of the many parts of camping was so bad for you? - Zach
I have never pitched that. take a holiday break you deserve it! ;)
Hope to get some great songs for this one!
I am more like to participate but maybe not listen when I have downtime. I usually still listen. I would also like the prompts listed earlier so I can organically think of them vs looking them up. No additional comms needed — just include them in the weekly. -Sam
Hey, Zach! So it’s 2014. I’m living in Philly and dating someone who lives in Lancaster. He asks me to go camping for the weekend, and I agree. I ask for the address of the campsite, as it is easier to just meet them there.
It is not a proper campsite. It is not a State Park. It is just an area in the woods where one of the guys has “been going [his] whole life.” In straight up, middle of nowhere, Pennsyl-tucky. It’s incredibly dark, and I have no idea where I’m going. The cell reception is abysmal, so it’s tough for me to even make a call to get a better idea of where I should be.
I make it to the campsite. I am the only woman there, and there are seven guys. All of them work for Lancaster Farm Fresh and have access to a variety of vegetables for free, which we could easily roast in tinfoil. Despite this, I am the only person who brought real food, water, or toilet paper. They had only brought weed, cases of beer, and one single pack of hot dogs. They figured they could fish for our meals. Fish for our meals in a random, unstocked stream. Sure. I’m not even sure if they all have fishing rods. I have no idea if they brought anything to clean, cook, or season the fish. But I doubt it.
There are two tents for everyone to share. There are no mats or anything to make it less horrible to lie on the ground. It starts to drizzle. It’s cold. I brought my sleeping bag, and I have to share it with my boyfriend because he has nothing to sleep on/in. I left at like 6 AM the next day because I had had enough.
As always, I am amazed at your story. And horrified in this instance. Fish for your food? That’s insane!
I promise camping can be fun. One day, if you want to, I hope you get to experience it. But, like, you don’t have to. Camping is not a life requirement. - Zach
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