Listen to
Missy Higgins'
The Sound of White album. I'm sure there's a song or two within them all that can help express your feelings through the musical lyrical expressions evident in 5-minute bits (I'd recommend
The Special Two).
I'm not a chick, but, yeah, I think you'll like it. (It's a good album, I'll admit, but I don't make it a habit of listening to it without some female companionship... it just feel weird.)
Also, it's a bit old school, but have you heard of
Ashford & Simpson? Their catalogue is amazing; find whatever you need and more from their numerous hits.
Some advice, though, just because I'm seeing it re-occurring too often above from others' musical recommendations: don't try to "jam" in a song that doesn't fit, or make too much of an emphasis on one point. Easy way of saying this: don't include more than a handful of songs in which the title specifically states "friend(s)"; it goes to show your hand at compiling the tracklisting, yes, but it also leaves alot to be desired in terms of creativity.
Personal query: for this "playlist" endeavor of yours, how many tracks do you have already? How many songs do you plan to include (full album's/60-80 min. worth)? Are you trying to be era-specific, or does that not matter as much? Will you be hand-drawing a box cover? How will you be finalizing the product? (will it be burned to a CD as a tangible gift, or will you e-mail the playlist to the recipient in question?). I'm really interested in this experiment because for the longest time (since last November or April, can't remember exactly) I've been whittling down a "specific-idea" playlist as well, and it is nearly complete after so much arduous work.
My take: I decided early on that I deem a "full album" to be between at least 10 songs and at most, 18. If I were to make a cassette mix tape, each side (A and B) would contain th same number of tracks, between 6-9 songs, depending on if I thought more music conveyed the point better. After that preliminary setup, I thought that a "perfect" length album contains 14-16 songs, and from there, I chose to create a two-part disc set of 16 tracks in each part. I think I have all my songs complete and in the
exact order I want them to be; but a few of them (only around) two songs can be swapped out if need be, either because I think the track doesn't fit the vibe (too
synthpop-y) or perhaps it's too unknown and offputting to listen to 3-minutes of instrumentals. I also made a innate effort to not include the same artist more than once, although if I did, I only did so twice, and I did my best not to include a song found in the same studio album as the other instance. Other than that, I have artists ranging from
Miles Davis and
U2 to
The Seatbelts. Last bit: I also figured out a way to organize the two-disc set of music into "mini-playlists" of 3 separate blocks of 5 songs each, with a *bonus* closing track (the resolution) to it. It's really quite neat how I was able to organize it so well, even though it did take the better part of (nearly) a year to complete it.
I wish you the best of luck, Salem.