The Esther Day 2024 Mix Tape: Side A can be found on Spotify. Listen in-blog below for a more rich experience, or on Spotify for uninterrupted music. Please note below each song is a link to song lyrics for accessibility. Check out more details on how to best enjoy mix tapes.
Good day! I’m DJ Ponyboy. Welcome to the Esther Day 2024 Mix Tape: Side A on KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado.
Esther Day, celebrated every August the third, honors the life and legacy of Esther Earl, a young woman who died of thyroid cancer in 2010. Esther was an active member of Hank and John Green’s online fan community, the Nerdfighters, and every year we celebrate Esther’s birthday as Esther Day, dedicated to celebrations of platonic and familial love.
Here at Mix Tape Journey, we feel celebrating non-romantic love is so important we decided to dedicate both of this month’s theme mix tapes to Esther and her mission. In addition, check out this fantastic blog post from Social Seahorse Connections celebrating the connections Esther has us making.
To kick us off, here are the Beatles reminding us that “All You Need Is Love”.
The Ancient Greeks recognized eight distinct types of love and believed in a “porosity of love” permitting love to filter through one type into the next.
One of the great shames of our language is that we only have one word for love, and of our society that we only really celebrate two types of love – romantic (Greek eros) and familial (storge).
While you think about what the other six types of love might encompass, enjoy this song celebrating those who enter our lives and impact them for the better. I would like to dedicate this song to my best friend Eric.
Thank you for being part of my life. I love you.
Here are Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth performing “For Good” from the musical Wicked right here on KMTJ-DB, Denver.
Love doesn’t always sound like, “I love you”. Sometimes it sounds like, “I’ll take care of you”, or “I’ll feed you”; however, I believe it is important to be explicit with something as powerful as love.
Can you think of someone you care deeply about but have never told “I love you”?
Perhaps someone like the singer of our next song. Someone who is your anchor, your pressure release, your honest mirror; someone who sees you for who you are, and loves you anyway.
Here is Velvet Underground and Nico.
Walk Off the Earth with their cover of “I’ll Be There for You”. Before that, “I’ll Be Your Mirror” by Velvet Underground and Nico.
Did you think of someone you love but whom you’ve never told? Or maybe someone you don’t tell often enough?
Join us in celebrating Esther Day 2024 by telling those you care about how much love you have for them.
One method of doing that is through a good old-fashioned telephone call. Our next song is a cover, performed by the late great John Prine, on KMTJ-DB, Denver, Colorado.
John Prine with his cover of Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You”.
If you, like me, struggle with expressing emotions in words, perhaps you can share your love musically, like our next artist.
Here is Jim Croce and “I’ll Have to Say I Love You In a Song”.
I think it’s easy to underestimate just how detrimental assigning value to only romantic and familial love can be. For example, have you ever heard either of the last two songs we listened to in a non-romantic context? Why are we starving for love when love is all around us?
Listen to what YouTube creator @ayandastood has to say on the subject.
What if romantic love is an elaborate distraction to make us forget that we could be demanding Community love? Because no one is sitting in bed and being like, “Oh you know I wish we were all in a loving community of bonds where we’re all supported”; they’re like, “Oh I just wish I had a girlfriend”. … They are limiting our imagination of love by hyper-fixating our attention on romantic love. There’s so much media attention. If you think of movies, if you think of shows, if you think of dating apps on romantic love, and you have to ask yourself why? And I think it is because romantic love is the least threatening form of love to the state and its institutions and they know we crave love. Like, they know there’s never going to be a world in which we don’t crave love because we’re social beings and because we’re loving beings so they’ve devised a form of love that is the least threatening, the least disruptive to the status quo. ~ayandastood
As you enjoy our next song, think about how you can use your love and the love of those who love you in revolutionary and subversive ways.
Here is Cher with “Different Kind of Love Song” on KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado.
We spoke earlier about how our society tends to only focus on two kinds of love (eros and storge); but the Greeks recognized six other types of love:
- philia (affectionate love between friends)
- ludus (playful, noncommittal love, including flirting, seduction, and casual sex)
- pragma (practical love, based on duty, obligation, or logic)
- agape (unconditional, sacrificial love)
- philautia (self-love, with a duality that can be good (self-esteem) or bad (narcissism)
- mania (obsessive “love”, like a stalker might feel toward their victim)
I have tried throughout side A of this mix tape to share songs that express the philia type of love, but have struggled to find what I’m really looking for.
Here is Carole King with “You’ve Got a Friend” on KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado.
The inimitable Carole King with “You’ve Got A Friend”.
Help us celebrate Esther Day this year by donating to This Star Won’t Go Out (TSWGO), a charity the Earl family created in 2011 to help other families battling childhood cancer.
When I first had the idea for this mix tape celebrating non-romantic love, there was one song that instantly came to mind. One song that I have always felt stood out for its blatant and unashamed message of pure unadulterated love without ever making it romantic or sexual.
Here is Stryper with “Honestly” on KMTJ-DB, Denver.
Stryper. Honestly, I’m not happy with the songs I was able to find. I’m disappointed that I had such a hard time finding non-romantic love songs. You may notice this mix tape is one song shorter than usual; in addition, many of the songs didn’t say, “I love you”, opting to talk instead about all the things they would do for the one they care about.
Have you thought of any songs I missed that I should have included? Stop by our Mix Tape Journeyers group on Facebook and let me know!
Thank you so much for joining me today for the Esther Day 2024 Side A Mix Tape celebrating non-romantic love and the life and legacy of Esther Earl. Make sure to join me again on August 25th for the exciting Side B conclusion, exploring non-romantic love from another angle.
In the meantime, find at least one person you love in a non-romantic way and tell them!
On KMTJ-DB – Your Mix Tape Journey – Denver, Colorado, I’m DJ Ponyboy. Until next time, stay gold.