Christian Lauersen

The Library Mixtape: “Sexiest librarian, take off those glasses…”

Processed with Rookie Cam

Growing up in the 90’s, making mixtape’s is one of the activities that has brought most pleasure and joy into my life. I remember sitting with my tape recorder listening to radio and getting ready to press ‘Rec’ and ‘Play’ when tunes of the 90’s grunge, brit pop and alternative rock was played. Pure good time (and frustrations when a speaker interrupted the song because of a goal scoring in a football match).

Making a mixtape in todays digital age is far from the analog feeling in my childhood but it still brings tons of joy – and specially the making of this little library mixtape. The lyrics is really something to dig into: apparently it’s a common belief that the library is a good place for romance.

1.  Librarian by My Morning Jacket

Simple little bookworm, buried underneath
Is the sexiest librarian
Take off those glasses and let down your hair for me

2. Young Adult Friction by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Between the stacks in the library
Not like anyone stopped to see
We came, they went, our bodies spent
Among the dust and the microfiche

3. Walt Grace’s Submarine Test, January 1965 by John Mayer

And his wife told his kids he was crazy
And his friends said he’d fail if he tried
But with the will to work hard and a library card
He took a homemade, fan blade, one-man submarine ride

4. Marian the Librarian from The Music Man

Marian…Madam Librarian
What can I say, my dear, to catch your ear
I love you madly, madly
Madam Librarian…

5. At The Library by Green Day

Staring across the room
Are you leaving soon?
I just need a little time

6. Wrapped Up In Books by Belle & Sebastian

We’ve got a fantasy affair
We didn’t get wet, we didn’t dare
Our aspirations, are wrapped up in books
Our inclinations are hidden in looks

 

7. Ravens in the Library by S. J. Tucker

One for fiction, two for truth
three for bikes and bathing suits, four for scifi/fantasy
five loves art and ancient skulls
six eats periodicals, seven lives in poetry

8. Lost in your time (at The Library) by Los Bossa Nuevo Biblioteca

We help you find
All the text on your mind
Lost in your time at the library

9. Love in the Library by Jimmy Buffett

Love in the library, quiet and cool
Love in the library, there are no rules
Surrounded by stories surreal and sublime
I fell in love in the library once upon a time

10. Swining London by Of Magnetic Fields

I read your manifestoes and your strange religious tracts
You took me to your library and kissed me in the stacks

11. Sweet Librarian by Railroad Jerk 

Swee-eeeet librarian
What good books can you recommend?
Swee-eeeet librarian
Do you think that we could still be friends?

12. The Librarians Are Hiding Something by Swinin’ Utter

Oh the librarians contrarians can’t fly on a wing
Oh the librarians barbarians are liking nothing
Which leads me to believe one thing
The librarians are hiding something

13. Books about UFOs by Hüsker Dü

Walking down a sunny street to the library
Checking out the latest books about outer space

14. Karen by The Go-Betweens

I know this girl
This very special girl
And she works in a library, yeah
Standing there behind the counter
Willing to help
With all the problems that I encounter

15. French Navy by Camera Obscura

Spent a week in a dusty library
Waiting for some words to jump at me
We met by a trick of fate
French navy my sailor mate

16. Librarian by Haunted Love

I want to be a librarian
I want to check out your books
Please give them to me
With the bar code facing up

17. A Girl Like You by Holiday With Maggie

I saw you in the library
Reading modern art
I glanced at you the whole day through 

18. Fun Fun Fun by The Beach Boys

Well she got her daddy’s car
And she cruised to the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now

19. Faster Pussycat to The Library by Sam Phillips

We’ll go where the action is
Go where the action is
If you don’t know what to do
I’ll look it up for you

20. The Book Lovers by Broadcast

Lines and lines of the spines, colored everyone
Down the aisles, along the titles
Where you run your eyes
Read a few lines, ah

Read more: Broadcast – The Book Lovers Lyrics | MetroLyrics

21. Libraries by Seabear

And I don’t believe you live in a library
That sails the sea
Sleeping with a book-blanket out at sea
Like you told me

22. Librarian by Jonathan Rundman


23. Addy Will Know by SNMNMNM

Not on YouTube but can be downloaded on abbywillknow.pbworks.com 

I couldn’t think of that book that I read
The one where the characters all wind up dead
Or maybe it was only just one guy
Who bit the dust in the ending
but when I looked in reference
I couldn’t find the section
I thought that I could find it on my own
Addy will know 

24. The Librarian by Hefner

He started to woo her in a most peculiar way
The librarian’s dress was a fawnish shade of gray
The books he was to borrow he would surely never read
They were of an intellectual caliber he hoped that she would see…

25. Ain’t Got Rhythm by Phineas and Ferb

Look, I got a sweet deal going on here
I got all the books that I can read
All these sweet old ladies and this carpet from the 80’s
What more could a librarian need?
Ssssssh
Besides, I ain’t got rhythm
No, I ain’t got rhythm
Said I ain’t got rhythm
I ain’t got rhythm

26. Library Magic by The Head and The Heart

27. Books of Califonia by Comet Gain

28. Library by Julia Brown

29. A Trip to The Library from the Broadway musical She Loves Me

30. The Library Song by Tonks and The Aurors

31. Library Pictures by Arctic Monkeys

32. Books from boxes by Maximo Park

33. Mass Nerder by Descendents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9F4k8dZf00
We must read
We must read
We must read
We must read
RRRREEEEAAAADDDD!

Somebody get me a book!

34. Judy Blume by Amanda Palmer

35. I am the Sub-Librarian by Piano Magic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY7YU5a3cFc
I am the sub-librarian, come in on the council bus
Chalk Farm to Highgate Woods, sportsbag of borrowed books
A steady diet of Brautigan, ‘Tapestry’ on the walkman
Paranormal ill-health from dusting off the top shelf
I am the sub-librarian, counter girl, tea-maker
I am the sub-librarian, swan feeder, spectacle breaker
I am the sub-librarian

36. Miss Clara/Azusa Sue by Bobbie Gentry (live performance by Chloe Darling)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmkXezHraeQ
Since I saw you at your desk
At the public library
You stamped my book and I took a look
And now your face is all I see

37. Heaven Sent by INXS

Tuesday she works in the library uptown
Some useful knowledge can always be found
Don’t burn the library till you’ve read all the books
Sometimes in life you get a second look

38. Library Girl by Squeeze
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rCfJduLBhY
She was a girl at the library, keeping her book behind the desk
She was a girl who ruled at me, for reading it’s scared to rest
She’s got a new beret, she was a library girl

39. A Design For Life by Manic Street Preachers

Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free
What price now for a shallow piece of dignity

40. The Arthur Library Card Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbXz3MXx2DU
Having fun isn’t hard, 
When you’ve got a library card.
Having fun isn’t hard, 
When you’ve got a library card.
Come on inside, 
We’ve got everything you need.
There’s plenty to do, 
Or you can just sit and read

41. On The Other Side of the Stacks by Jeremy Morse

Have I missed any awesome library songs on the mixtape?

Cheers

Christian

 

38 comments

  1. This is obviously more my generation than yours, but Fun, Fun, Fun by the Beach Boys where:

    Seems she forgot all about the library
    Like she told her old man now

    Like

    Reply

  11. One of my favourite Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets songs, “Some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know,” mentions a library. 🙂
    “Don’t clean the mirror.
    Don’t be surprised
    When your reflection seems like
    A pack of lies.
    Don’t ask the inmates
    What it’s about.
    Don’t cry in the library
    When you find out.”

    Like

    Reply

  21. Saw these guys at SXSW a couple years ago… Yellow Ostrich, “libraries”

    Libraries burn fast
    when they’re in the past
    once you leave all your stories will be gone
    libraries burn fast
    they weren’t built to last
    flames of memory burn brighter than the rest

    Libraries burn fast

    Should we try to save them
    should we try to save them
    when will they be missing
    when will they be missing

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  22. Two songs from the latest B&S LP mention libraries: “The Cat with the Cream” (“I studied you in history / I studied in the library….”) and “Allie” (“Allie, hand on your head / And a prayer from the soon-to-be-closing library….”). There’s a great reference in Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ amazing “There She Goes, My Beautiful World”: “Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles while writing Das Kapital /And Gaugin, he buggered off, man, and went all tropical / While Philip Larkin stuck it out in a library in Hull / And Dylan Thomas died drunk in St. Vincent’s hospital….” There’s that catchy line from Paul Westerberg’s “Dyslexic Heart”: “Thanks for the book, now my table is ready / Is this a library or bar?” The Decemberists’ “California One / Youth and Beauty Brigade” has a few great lines about a public library (“I figured I had paid my debt to society / By paying my overdue fines at the Multnomah County Library (at the library)….”), as does Cold War Kids’ “Red Wine, Success!”: “Squat public library checking out “The Trial” / Strolls to the pier to gather his thoughts / Squat public library checking out “The Trial” / He’s talking to himself about it….”

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment