Do You Remember How We Used to Do It?

Back before everything got fancy, we made our music the old-fashioned way, by aim­ing a plastic tape-recorder mic at the radio and praying nobody coughed. If you never held your breath through the last ten seconds of a song so you wouldn’t ruin the recording, I’m not sure you’ve truly lived.

I can still see us, two kids sprawled on the shaggy living-room carpet, elbows poking each other like we were tuning a pair of long-range antennas. The radio on the end table crackled with that soft hiss that meant the station was coming in “pretty good, considering,” and the tape recorder sat in the middle of the floor like a tiny, plastic deity we hoped to impress.

“Okay,” I’d whisper, hovering over the red button. “This is the one. Don’t move.”

“You always say that,” you’d whisper back, already shifting because your leg had fallen asleep. “My foot’s tingling like a hornet nest.”

“Well, maybe tell it to quiet down,” I’d say. “We’re doin’ important work here.”

Then the DJ, who must’ve been part villain, would talk right through the intro, give a full weather report, list three birthdays, congratulate someone’s bowling team, and finally shut up long enough for us to hit RECORD. The tape wheels would start their soft whir, and we’d freeze, waiting, listening, hoping the universe held its breath with us.

Most times, something went wrong. A dog barked. Someone yelled from the kitchen. The phone rang with the kind of clattering authority only landlines had.

Once, right as the chorus hit, my brother burst in and announced, “If anybody sees my left shoe, don’t touch it! It’s got a frog in it!”

That frog made the final mix, by the way. We left it in for posterity.

But every so often, we caught a song clean. Those were victories, the kind you feel all the way down in your socks.

We’d lean in close, listening to the playback like archaeologists dusting off treasure.

“Wow,” you’d say, eyes shining. “That sounds…almost good.”

“Yeah,” I’d say, full of pride. “Real professional.”

Truth was, the tape hissed, the room echoed, and the radio drifted in and out like a boat on a lazy tide. But it didn’t matter; what did was how we nudged shoulders, how the floor felt warm from the afternoon sun, how the world slowed down enough for us to catch a song and record it.

These days, playlists build themselves with one tap. You don’t have to wait or work for anything.

There’s something fine about that convenience, sure, but there’s something finer about working for the things you love, even if the work involves a cheap mic, a hopeful heart, and the patience of saints. And sometimes, when I hear one of those old songs, I swear I can still hear that frog.