Rob: Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146882/

Oh I get that, but I am a poet. And, if need be, I am subtle.

Okay, I'll play.

First real romantic kiss: Elvis, "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"

First Love: The Highway Men: "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore"

The Big Break Up Two and a Half Years Later: Any Beatles song. Since that is all you would hear on the radio, I have hated the Beatles ever since.

Second Great Love: At first sight/sound as he locked eyes and with mic in hand at the piano bar sang: "Help Me Make It Through the Night" Whew! Still gets me decades later.

The Memories of a Great Love: Helen Reddy "Emotion"

Marriage: I associate no songs.

Alone again after 32 years: Alan Jackson "Tonight I Climbed the Wall"

First Single Lust: Whitney Houston "I Will Always Love You"

Today: The background music for the depression medicine ad for Cymbalta. (Yes, pretty pathetic.)

Need a song to represent the search for a "last love."

Waiting for Carlie (to come home), by Etta James.

Sweet. Love Light My Fire!

My life with men: Grandfathers, dad and uncles all loved Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and the marches of John Philip Sousa. My teen love was poisoned by the Beatles using my name as a song title; it took me a decade to forgive them.

The year I met my ex, our orchestra was struggling with Shostakovich #5. Prophetic.

My sons: Sesame Street's "I love Trash." The only thing a boy loves more than useless junk is big loud stuff that blows up.

Fascinating, vital men along the way, none of whom could or would be mine: Bach speaks the language. Beauty and joy, even when what you desire can never be yours.

My current, unrequited and last love: Neville and Ronstadts' Don't Know Much. A musical restatement of St. Francis: Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

It is never what we have, but who has us, that counts.

Bonus musical dedication: To the moral slugs, political leeches and intellectual hypocrites now destroying our country: Beethoven's Ninth. You cannot prevail against the indominable human spirit, you scum. Long after your children have renounced you, your treacherous faces are forgotten and your miserable ideas have been buried in humanity's ash heaps, our progeny will be reaching for freedom and exulting in the music of genius!

Mine? The Wreck of the Old '97

The art of the mix tape is a dying one, with the age of the MP3 player.

Art of the mix tape dying, you say? Somebody run out and tell the club DJs their art is dead. I don't think they got the memo.

Cross off the first three and the rest are all on my emotional playlist.

I would have to add:

Carly Simon's You're So Vain
Fleetwood Mac's Landslide
Rose Colored Glasses by John Conlee
And everything George Strait ever sang.

I don't have songs. I have Roy Orbison. He sang how I felt.

And I thought I was alone in seeing my life through songs that are the touchpoints of life. Whenever I've shared songs like this and the memories, I've always gotten strange looks. Hello, fellow travelers.

Whoops. Wrote that too early in the a.m. without the benefit of coffee. "Waiting for Charlie" (to come home) Etta James. Sad, sad, sad. Also find Chris Rea's Road to Hell most inspiring and appropriate.

I think more people bought cassette tapes to record songs on in the 1980s every DAY than the total number of DJs in the world right now. The art is dying, even if a few try to keep it alive without actually, you know, making mix tapes.

Good stuff, everyone. To raincityjazz:
Your last comment made me shout out, "YES!!" from my cubicle this morning. Three people asked if I was ok. I am.
My songs? I think of one as mine. "Sit Down", by James.

Loved that!

Those Pips sure did move well.

And I love Van in the Them video - standing there all awkward and shy, wailing out GLORIA in that voice of his. There is nothing he does that I don't like.

I recently bought a "Them" record -- I think they made only one -- it has the GLORIA track on it - the rest of the LP is excellent. It will take you back, way back, to a time you remember that you didn't even know you knew.

Relationship-wise, this strikes me as the audio version of Jack Nicholson's "Ball Busters I Have Known" slide show from "Carnal Knowledge."

Puppy Love: Jesus Loves the Little Children (I was in Sunday school)

First Sexual Encounter: it was something by Rush

First Love: Y&T - Rescue Me

First Divorce: nothing

Second Marriage: Fleetwood Mac - Tango in the Night

Second Divorce: nothing

Unrequited Love: Collective Soul - December

Lucky Husband #3: Craig Morgan - International Harvester

One song for all situations; The Hokey Pokey. After all, that's what it's all about.