Your Song

 It occurred to me this past weekend that I do not think that I could accurately name The Song that my wife and I would agree is "ours." Not because we don't share musical tastes. We do. I have been expressly involved in generating a playlist of tunes that create a tapestry of our lives together. The mightiest challenge in this process would be winnowing down all of those sounds to one specific and special song. 

There was a time, when I was a much younger man, that I could have told you the song that I shared with my high school girlfriend, but she might disagree with me. Time has a way of making sentiment a syrupy and unfortunate thing. Add to this that I made dozens of mix tapes that described the arc of that relationship, and I was also privy to the songs that defined her relationships prior to ours. I was not above capitalizing on that fact by replaying bits of her history before me for context. Then adding my own layer of sonic frosting to that mix. 

Once upon a time I referred to those mix tapes as "an opera I was too lazy to write." A love story described in popular music of the day. With the occasional spoken word bits and themes to movies that made an appearance in our timeline. 

Eventually that romance ended, but the tapes kept being made. Rehashing musical references to what once was and a friendship that bloomed in the wake of that breakup. When love came back into my life some time later, that urge to document that new relationship with music could not be shaken. The fact that most of the time I spent courting my wife was done to a prerecorded group of songs some of which had already been road tested in my prior affair. I already knew the power of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," for example. 

But there was still so much to be learned. Rush, for example, is a very much acquired taste and in the process of wooing a potential mate should be avoided at all costs. I am pleased and happy to report that after decades of wearing her down, my wife no longer reaches for the volume control to turn down compositions by Geddy Lee and the boys whenever they appear either in the wild of forced upon her in a CD mix. No matter how clever that segue you thought you were making. 

There was music that showed up during the initial dates my wife and I took after years of being just good friends. There was music from the bin of surprise that came from the discovery that after all those years of hanging out that we might end up being, well, married. And of course there were those moments of revelation that occurred when we both realized that the snickering we had been doing about couples and their sentimentality was just a tad hypocritical. We played Etta James' "Always" at our wedding, for example. 

But if you're asking me to pick one or even a dozen songs that would define the rough outline of our relationship? Never mind. You might as well ask me to describe the colors of a rainbow. Easy enough until you start looking more closely. So if you're asking me now, I'll have to say that it would have to be "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" from the Ren and Stimpy Show. Meet me back here in a couple hours and the answer will be different. See you then.