Snippets of previous owners' lives in used records
 

Often you hear record collectors claiming that vinyl has a soul that CDs don't, however occasionally you find something which suggests this, have you ever found a snippet of someone else's life in a used record? For example...

1) I've bought every Cocteau Twins LP I have from the same shop, which has evidently bought them from the same seller. Each of my Cocteau Twins records has "Happy Birthday Claire xxx" and a loving message from "mummy and daddy" written on the label. I find it very touching but also pretty creepy that I have four years worth of Claire's, whoever she is, birthday presents from her parents.

2) Once a love letter slipped out of a newly bought second hand Peter Gabriel IV LP, some guy proclaiming his undying love for his lady and his wish to spend the rest of his life with her.

3) The inner sleeve of my Highway 61 LP is someone's loving shrine to Dylan, with magazine photos, lyrics and cartoons of Dylan smoking joints.


I'd like to hear about other people's experiences with these rare but touching insights into the lives of others. Also, how do people find these discoveries, moving, funny, or creepy? go!

I found an old note someone had saved inside an old Police album I bought,.
it was a love letter. It is still in the vinyl. I saved it.

this is why I like to write things in library books, and I must go through 200-300 library books a year.

I don't know about vinyl, but Internet files can also have snippets of other people lives. I was watching this video on youtube and someone wrote that delicate message saying "if u dont copypaste this then ur mother will die". Cute, eh.

God, I FUCKING HATE it when people do that. You absolute fucking prick.

Every time I get a book from the the library and someone has written in it (usually in shit handwriting, usually in ink) I imagine some smug prick thinking they're somehow enhancing someone else's appreciation of a book by revealing something ABSOLUTELY AMAZING that NO-ONE OTHER THAN THAT SMUG CUNT could possibly have realised. What you're actually doing is annoying the fuck out of anyone else who's reading it.

The number of people who did that in uni... and they'd always right the most pointless, insipid horseshit in there. The only time it was redeeming was a 20-year conversation in the margins of Plato's republic (or possibly Aristotle's Politics, I forget) where one of our Greek protagonists talks about 'the right to have a slave' and the first person wrote something like '[x]'s racism invalidates his whole philosophy!!!' and loads of other readers (clearly being a bit brighter) wrote a series of brilliant insults ('ABSOLUTE. FUCKING. MORON.').

Otherwise, this is absolutely inexcusable behaviour.

I love these, particularly the dedications from Mummy & Daddy - 'Don't know if you're a bit old for this now... Love Mummy & Daddy' in a Peter Nero record.

My absolute favourite is a copy of Billy Bragg's 'life's a riot with Spy vs Spy' where someone has written 'To Sally - the dark edge of life. Don't ever forget it!' and then someone has crossed that out and written 'To Steve - hope you like it!' just underneath. I've wanted to cross out the second one and give it to someone for years, but I don't tend to go with girls who'd like the Braggmeister.

i once bought a book of poetry by some unknown author and in it was a dedication in pencil to some friendsm by the poet, so that was pretty cool. dont think it happened with an lp though

Ha, i love reading the shit written in old books(usually lovers shit or "fuck u")
and the funny ass arguments that go on through them. I know its stupid and wrong but it always makes me laugh. If theres a bunch of shit already on it, i cant help but scribble some stupid shit down too:eek:

I want to see these...

Its like a youtube comments page years ahead of its time; idealogical arguement that descends into petty slanging.

I love this sort of thing, but i cant remember any album ones ive got off the top of my head.
I remember buying a second hand computer game, a football game i think, and in the "notes" section at the back of the manual the previous owner had written "Whoever bys this your a fucking prick, this games shit"

i bought a vinyl copy of van morrisons astral weeks second hand a good few years back and on the run off someone etched "thank you for everything you have done, see you in 75 xxx"

curious.

How do we know it wasn't a message from the man himself?

Alot of second hand stuff I have has names written all over them, somtimes right on the cover, flamboyantly.

There was a record store in Belfast that had a Saxon album for sale that was legendary among my friends because there was dodgy polaroids of some middle aged fat woman in all sorts of positions in the sleeve.

The copy of Dinosaur Jr's Bug in Birmingham central library had a cartoonish drawing of some guy with CUNTOR written over the top, I remember the first time I saw it laughing my ass off.

When my friend/ex-boss at the record store would buy huge collections from people, especially really old collections, we would WITHOUT FAIL discover vintage porn in varying levels of explicitness hidden in amongst the vinyl.

One of these (a very elderly man who died at 90+) also had his own unique archiving/cataloging number system, pencilled on the back upper corner of each LP. When I would find these, I would always know they were his, and I always appreciated being able to erase the pencil. He had some foresight. I sold one of his records for a thousand dollars once, and I'm sure it would have gone for a lot less had he been doing his numbering in ink.

We didn't tell his bereaved family about all the porn.

no, i dont right intellectual notes/analysis in the margins, I just write like "Sonic Youth" or tag, or put "Rastafari Selassie I Vibrations" or other personal touches. I dont bother with putting my intepretations/analysis, I put those notes in notebooks.

I agree with this. Those cunts.

Oh, so it's just straight-up vandalism, then. OK.

library books and materials are public property.

"tagging" is for dipshits with tiny semi-functional dicks.

oh my god, it's just writing in books, get the fuck over it.