Moods - Dark

I used to have a friend in high school who was the antithesis to everything popular: she wore all black, she kept mostly to herself, she favored dark black eyeshadow and red lipstick, and her hair color changed from one week to the next. She smoked cigarettes, quoted Edgar Allen Poe, and liked to watch things die and/or decompose. Her name was Tiphareth meaning "Spear of the Sun"; when I found out what her name meant I thought it amusing that she was given such a bright name when there was nothing bright about her. Her family was normal, lived in the suburbs, didn't practice Witchcraft, so I never understood where her personality came from.

Tip, as we called her, is fondly remembered because of the music she listened to and subsequently introduced some of it to me. She was known for creating these mixed tapes and handing them out to random people. They always hand written track lists and always had some sort of dead, dried rose attached to them. They were never peppy and they were never anything that even came close to cheering a person up, but they were thoughtful and well put together. They were classic Alternative mixes and they were all titled, in numbered order: Dark Sounds 1 - whatever number it was she got to when she finally finished her project. If she ever did. I'd like to think that Tip is still out there somewhere making mixed cd's and giving them to random people.

I lost track of Tip my senior year, when she went have to a little Alternative baby and came back before graduation. There was an entire school year of our friendship she missed and as life does when you are that age, things changed. We still talked but she kept her distance and when graduation rolled around and I was preparing to give my Valedictorian speech, Tip jumped up on stage and handed me Dark Sounds #56.

While my mood isn't necessarily dark on this chilly and overcast day and the music isn't the classic definition of dark, I am often reminded of Tiphareth and her Dark Sounds mixes when thinking about our little salute to Alternative here at Audio Overflow.

So this is for Tip, wherever she may be...


Dark, as defined by Websters:

1. having very little or no light
2. radiating, admitting, or reflecting little light
3. gloomy; cheerless; dismal
4. sullen; frowning
5. evil; iniquitous; wicked
6. hard to understand; obscure
7. hidden; secret
8. silent; reticent
9. a dark place