I was raised way up in the mountains by (for lack of a better word) Hippies. We didn't have a telephone, or running water (yes an outhouse) or electricity until I was in 6th grade. My folks didn't believe in television, but my mother is a folk-singer & my father a music junkie with a large record collection (which I inherited on my 14th birthday) & it seemed that our lives revolved around music.

Whether it was in the form of Mom playing guitar & singing us to sleep, or Dad starting up the generator (which was only otherwise used to power the juicer for our required morning glass of carrot juice) to play us a Frank Zappa tune (I'm The Slime) that would curb our young minds of the question, "why can't we have a T.V. like NORMAL people?"

As children my siblings & I spent the greater part of each Summer at our Grammaw's house up in the woods. While my older sister was off chasing boys at the lake & my younger brother was off chasing frogs in the creek ... I was in the house, chasing pop-music on the stacks and stacks of records I would pile around me. You see, Grammaw had electricity & little Poppy could listen as long & as often & as loud as she desired.

Curled up on a large avacado-green vinyl, duct-tape patched bean-bag chair directly in front of Grammaw's large silver Hi-Fi system, wearing a set of headphones not unlike the ones depicted in my cover art (except for the fact that mine were made of wood). They were huge & heavy & awkward & if I accidentally bobbed my head too far to either side my neck would threaten to snap. But they erased the outside world & cocooned me inside my music & brought a feeling of safe contentment into my soul that I was too young then to recognize or explain.

Each of the songs on this mix was chosen because I consider them to be perfect 10s & I have at different times in my life spent more than a little time, wrapped in headphones, ignoring life outside just to listen again & again & again to a perfect little bit of heaven.

1-7 are from summers @ Grammaws

8-12 are teenage years (the headphones got smaller, but the frequency intensified)

12-21 are college & beyond (I am now on the lookout for a nice, large, wooden pair once again)