Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

— Victor Hugo

Girl you're every woman in the world to me — you're my fantasy, you're my reality.

— Air Supply

I found them in the basement, a layer of grime from the ancient oil furnace clouding their handwritten covers: my once-beloved mixed tapes.

Not far from the warped LPs and other yard sale leftovers deemed too precious to give to Goodwill, the soundtracks of my past were in a sorry state.

Some were flat-out embarrassing. I should’ve known that a relationship with a guy who puts “Helter Skelter” on his declaration-of-love mixed tape was not going to work.

One sent me straight to Google in search of my old buddy Stan, creator of “The often-imitated, never-duplicated, one-of-a-kind official Stan Kleine Tape,” circa 1987.

I mean, it’s not every day you hear Eddie Murphy’s “Boogie In Your Butt.”

And my wedding reception mix will forever trigger a favorite memory — the moment “Love Shack” came over the speakers, and even the grandmas proceeded to get down.

Text-messaging teenagers and bored twentysomethings who spend their workdays e-mailing mp3’s to friends may think they invented these music collages. But I’ve got news for them:

Ever since the first little stack of 45 records was placed on a turntable, deejay wannabes have been mixing their own tunes. By the time cassette tapes came along (and, later, CDs), music freaks everywhere were making personalized versions of the schlocky old K-Tel compilations: the so-called mixed tape.

The next step, of course, was to give them away.

As the protagonist in Nick Hornby's “High Fidelity” says: “Making a tape is like writing a letter — there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do.”

Nothing says “I love you” or “Road trip!” or “I’d Totally Make Love to These Songs If They Were Turned Into a Person” like a mixed tape.

My husband and I have been giving them as Christmas gifts since 1990 — with the exception of 1992, when the evil sister-in-law (now ex-) complained that we were being too cheap. (The rest of the family rushed to our defense and by 1993 we were back on track.)

Listening to them now is like looking at old photo albums, only better because there are no yucky hairstyles to relive.

One of my co-workers recalls a tape she and a friend designed in high school. The “Seduction Tape,” as it became known, started out hard-driving (think Judas Priest and beer-drinking) then progressively mellowed (think Journey and the brown corduroy make-out couch).

“I hate to admit it, but I think there was some Toto on there,” she said.

———

But mixed tapes are more than an aural diary. A well-crafted mix is a respite from the watered-down bubble gum that constitutes our local commercial radio, where we still get the daily dose of Journey — only without the brown couch.

Years ago our friend David moved from Roanoke to Richmond and called within the week to brag about all the great alt-country and roots music he heard on the radio there.

It was David, not the Led Zeppelin and Destiny’s Child promoters here, who first turned us on to Wilco, Sarah McLachlan and Keb’ Mo' — all on a mixed tape he titled “Give me all your money and three Big Macs to Go,” a line from Beck’s “Mexico.”

Then came that very tiny, somewhat questionable downloading phase that we don’t like to talk about. The day my 11-year-old and I fumbled our way into the downloading world, Disapproving Dad (who gives workshops on copyright infringement) washed his hands of the endeavor, refusing to help.

Watching the two of us victory-dance around the computer to Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing,” he finally cracked a smile. But a few weeks later — when it became clear that we were definitely, er, bending the law — he trashed our downloading software and forced us to come clean.

Bye-bye, obscure John Prine cuts and unreleased Steve Earle-Lucinda Williams duets. Bye-bye, “If I Only Had a Brain” and all those other great songs you had meant to buy but didn’t get around to — all of which combined to produce one whale of a Songs for a Snow Day mix.

Around the same time we entered LimeWire detox, the record stores introduced those cool headphones that allow you to listen to part of any song on any album before buying it. That's how I found the Old Crow Medicine Show, one of my new hippie/bluegrass favorites, and Madeleine Peyroux, who is sort of Edith Piaf-meets-Norah Jones.

Both of whom you’d have to travel to Richmond or Asheville to hear on the radio. (Unless, like my hipper/younger colleagues who sometimes let me ride in their cars, you have satellite radio.)

———

Now we have come to the iPod, which has not only changed music as we know it but has also made creating mixes — herein referred to as playlists — easier than ever.

These and other amazing gum packet-sized devices hold thousands of songs, and you can organize them either by CD (for you purists who believe music should be listened to in the order the artist intended) or in mixed-tape fashion (however you like), or completely at random.

You can also purchase any song or album you want via the Web (apple.com/itunes/store) and discover new songs you didn't even know you wanted. So it's like having your own record-store listening station, only cheaper (99 cents for a song, $9.99 for most albums), and you don't have to drive to the mall.

Roanoke music hound William Alexander stores 7,000 songs on his laptop and 4,000 of those — the “strong cream of my musical crop" — on his iPod. A 29-year-old graphic designer and community college instructor, he's gone from a 90-minute recorded mix of favorites to a 14-and-a-half-day soundtrack for his life. “It's like I have my very own radio station, with no commercials, that only plays songs I love, and it's with me wherever I go.”

The iPod also allows him to rotate his favorite playlist to fit his current state of mind, he adds, “rather than capturing a point in your life" — like all those old mixed tapes in the basement.

Still, you can't give your entire iPod away on a disc to all your friends, one reason why the mixed tape is still alive and thriving in the digital age. Not only can you buy mixes at itunes.com, you can also post your own on the site. (Beware, it's a major breach of etiquette to buy someone else's mix and pass it off as your own.)

And check out tinymixtapes.com for great reviews of bands you've never heard of and, even better, ideas for such inventive mixes as:

• Going on a college overnight; music to bring with me that will immediately give me a killer reputation.

• Songs to create a loving environment in which to bring our baby into this world.

• I don't know how to say this but, although I really am in love with you, kissing you is like kissing my brother. (Tracklist)

Dang, the kids have it easy these days, don't they?

I worry, though, about corrupted files, fried hard-drives and lake parties that end in accidental iPod drownings. If these kids don't back up their tunes with a mixed tape or disc, they won't be able to retreat to their basements to relive the old beaus and bad decisions, and head-banging good times.