�Thanks to the Tatnan for planting this idea in my head.� Since I am all about the song virus, how apropos to do an entry that is my life in 31 songs.� For the most part these ARE in chronological order insofar as they were important in my life, but not necessarily when they were originally produced or recorded, although most are in release order.

�So without further adieu, here they are:

�1.����������� �Desiree� - Neil Diamond:� Now, laugh all you want, Neil Diamond is way cool!!� In 1977, when I was like 8-ish my mom really started to get into him and for Christmas that year I got Neil Diamond�s album, �I�m Glad You�re Here with Me Tonight� which also featured the original recording of �You Don�t Bring Me Flowers� which was NOT a duet with Babs and frankly I liked it better.� I loved this album.� Looking at reviews on Amazon.com of this album, I am quite pleased.� This album deserves all the praise it gets.

�2.�������� �God Only Knows� ~ Neil Diamond:� From the same album.� Shortly after I got this album, my dog Ribeau (pronounced Ree-bow - what!� He was a French poodle - my parents named him) died and I was lost in total sadness.� For a week I sat in my room and cried and listened to this song over and over.� If I were to hear it now it would make me feel like that again.� Music, or rather these songs in this list in particular, are meant to take you back to �that time.�

�3.�������� �Da Doo Run Run� ~ Shaun Cassidy:� Remember when he was THE cutest, hottest thing around and we all had his album as little girls?� Some friends of mine and I would stage talent shows in someone�s garage and sing songs off this album.� GAWD he was cute.� I had that Shaun Cassidy poster from the album hanging on my wall at one point and I actually still have this album in my cabinet.� Oh yeah, its on vinyl of course!

�4.�������� The soundtrack to �Star Wars�:� 1977.� This had to be my introduction to classical music.� And you know what?� I don�t think there is really anything else that I need to say about this piece and the significance in my life because I think it speaks for itself.� I will say THIS though�.� My parents gave me the soundtrack (on vinyl of course) and I used to take it to school on Friday�s so we could listen to it in music class.� Well, one afternoon (I think I was in fourth grade) I was standing out side waiting for mom to pick me up after school and the first record with the main theme slid out of the sleeve, onto the sidewalk and a huge chunk broke out of it!!� I WAS CRUSHED!� I didn�t get another copy of the soundtrack til I was in my late 20�s when I bought it on CD.

5.����������� �Another Brick in the Wall� ~ Pink Floyd:� OK, when its 1979 and you are in fifth grade and you hear a rock song saying �We don�t need no education�..�� you tend to think �Hey, this is pretty cool!�� Of course not needing no education is NOT cool, but as immature little brats, we would have begged to differ.� As an adult, I think this album (and heck, just about every album they have ever recorded) is a masterpiece.� I still have my original vinyl copy of �The Wall� right there in my entertainment center.

�6.�������� �Cars� ~ Gary Numan:� NO!� This is NOT an 80�s song.� It was actually released in September of 1979 and wasn�t it just totally way cool?� And it still is.� For me this had to be the beginning of new wave.� I was only 10 when this song came out so I was too young for punk, but not too young for radio that played pop music at the time.� This song was all over it.� I will never forget watching Saturday Night Live when he was the musical guest and it was very hard to understand what he was saying, so during his second number they had the lyrics at the bottom of the screen.� Weird.� In any event, this song is a classic.

�7.�������� �I Wanna Rock With You� ~ Michael Jackson:� 1979.� Remember when Michael Jackson was black and he had that faboo album �Off The Wall� and we, who were not familiar with him in his Jackson 5 days all sat up and noticed him?� Well, this song is not important to me for that reason.� In fact, it�s a totally bizarre reason.� One night when my parents were out and we had a babysitter, the movie �The Exorcist� came on tv.� I don�t know what kind of crack my babysitter was smoking, but why she let me stay up and watch this I will never know.� Remember, me, 1979, 10 years old.� Do I REALLY need to be watching this movie?� Even though it had been edited for TV, I saw about an hour of it before I went upstairs to bed, totally terrified.� And I do mean TERRIFIED!!!� I stayed up all night because I was too afraid to sleep.� I even had school the next day.� Well, after I got in bed, I was so scared that I put my radio right beside me so I could listen to it all night and this was one of the first songs I heard.� To this day, if I hear this song it reminds me of how scared I was and I still think this is the scariest movie of all time.� Other songs from that night, if I hear them freak me out:� �Sarah� - Fleetwood Mac and �D�j� vu� - Dionne Warwick.� Go ahead.� You can laugh if you need to.

�8.����������� �Another One Bites the Dust� ~ Queen:� 1980, 6^th grade.� How freaking cool WAS this song?� For many of us THIS was our introduction to Queen because their 70�s rock was a bit too heavy for our young brains.� This song emulated disco with its bass beat and spawned what may have been the first Weird Al parody, �Another One Rides the Bus.�� I received this album �The Game� as a birthday present.� I still have it.� And yes, its on vinyl!� I really miss Freddie Mercury.� It you have not see the VH1 Behind the Music for Queen, wow!� You WILL cry at the end.

�9.�������� �I Love Rock and Roll� ~ Joan Jett and the Blackhearts:� 1981.� I was 12 years old and in middle school.�� 7^th grade I think.� Much Like �Another Brick in the Wall�, this song spoke volumes about us, and us meaning youth.� It was THE biggest song in the world there for a little while and we all sang it, requested it, bought her album, and praised it.� And when at the end of the year there was a talent show and kids had formed a band (named Oasis incidentally) and played this song, well, I don�t think I need to tell you who won the talent show.� �I Love Rock and Roll� stands alone as an anthem for our generation.

�10.������ �Don�t You Want Me� ~ The Human League:� 1981.� This was probably the first real new wave song I loved.� It sounded so cool when it came out.� I also really loved �Keep Feeling Fascination�.� In fact I think I liked it better, but this song came first and Human League were a sensation, for a minute or too.� This was also when MTV was coming onto the scene (remember when they played music videos?) and this was in multi rotation.� It was a great song then, the video was very stylish (although seeing a guy wearing that much make up when you are 12 is kind of weird - later in life it didn�t bother me so much) and set the fashion trends for the early 80�s.� I sang in a band in college and we did this song.

�11.������ �Heat of the Moment� ~ Asia:� 1982:� Hailed as the �Supergroup of the 80�s� Asia fizzled out pretty fast, but this first album of theirs was awesome!� �Heat of the Moment� also goes down as one of my favorite songs of all time.� I still love it.� I play air guitar and drums whenever I hear it and I remember being 13 again.� The video was pretty cool too.� Just a bunch of TV screens that kept scrolling through pictures of this woman�s life, the woman being the subject of the song.� It�s a shame that this band didn�t really last because the musical talent that made it up was amazing and the song writing was incredible.� I still like this song and do own it on CD.

�12.����������� �Limelight� ~ Rush:� 1983.� From �Moving Pictures�.� Rush has got to be one the best bands ever.� And when I heard �Limelight� I fell in love with them.� I was in 8^th grade in 1983 and it was the time when kids were really into cliques.� I guess they still are now, but you had your popular kids, your nerds and the �heads� who wore �head shoes� and were supposed to be stoners and listen to bands like Rush.� So I was kinda reluctant to be an open Rush fan lest someone mistake me for a pot head because I most certainly was not.� IN any event, you would be hard pressed to find someone who does not agree that Moving Pictures is one the greatest rock albums ever.� I actually like the song �Spirit of Radio� better and consider it one of my favorite songs of all time, but �Limelight� was the song that introduced me to Rush.� And when I went off to college and became a music snob, I never deleted Rush from my music collection.� And today, when they play blocks of Rush on our classic rock radio station I get all giddy!

�13.����������� �Photograph� ~ Def Leppard:� 1983.� Ah!� 8^th grade!� This is another song I would consider another one of my all time favorites.� I had Def Leppard stuff all over the walls of my room, Pyromania mania swept the world, DL were the coolest band (if not one of the more tragic) bands in the world.� I was their biggest fan!� I loved Joe Elliot and wanted to marry that man!� They still do great work in my opinion.� The video for this song set off a whole fashion craze with the Union Jack flag sleeveless shirt.� I of course was guilty of owning one of those myself along with parachute pants!� Looking back at the video it is way cheesy and you know they are all drunk in the video.���� I think I also began my Marilyn Monroe fascination with this video since it alluded to her.� I still regret not seeing them in concert when I was in high school.� Another good Behind the Music.� The thing about this song and the last song on my list is they both have these really great guitar riff hooks at the beginning.� You KNOW what the song is the first one of two notes.�

�14.������ �Girls Just Wanna Have Fun� ~ Cyndi Lauper:� 1984, freshman year of high school.� Call her pop or call her new wave, she had her own style and was cute as a button, not to mention she wrote some really catchy songs and had a pretty darn decent first album.� I love her cover of Prince�s �When You Were Mine.�� This song was for us girls and told us we were all right.� It also gave us license to dress all funky and do funny things with our hair.� I think to me this song and video will always be one the consummate 80�s songs because of the sound and the look of the video.� A high school anthem and anthem of more carefree days indeed!�

15.����������� �Dance the Night Away� ~ Van Halen:� Although this song came out in 1979 in VH II, I didn�t really get into Van Halen til around the time I was finishing junior high and going to high school.� One day I just decided that I loved this song and went out and bought the album (on cassette).� After that I couldn�t get enough Van Halen and remember at one point in my young life thinking, �Oh my Gawd!� I am going to love Van Halen even when I am 90 years old!� How cool will THAT be!�� And I had a boyfriend who had this ritual of once a month sitting in his room all day and listening to all of their albums in one day.� At the time, there were only 5 so it couldn�t have taken him THAT long.� And of course they were all on vinyl.� I got over my Van Halen fascination.� And funnier still, didn�t realize David Lee Roth was Jewish until Adam Sandler�s Hanukkah Song came out.� I still like this song and consider it my favorite of theirs, and Van Hagar for that matter.

�16.������ �Hold Me Now� ~ Thompson Twins:� 1984 from �Into the Gap�.�� My first real boyfriend who I really cared about was my boyfriend my freshman year of high school.� He was a sophomore and had a car.� It was something like a 1977 Cutlass Supreme and it was freaking HUGE!� We went out for about three months and then he called me one day after school and broke up with me.� I was heartbroken.� But I was even more heartbroken when I saw him three days later walking down the hallway after school with his arm around another girl, who was a friend of mine.� I ran crying to my geometry teacher 9who was only like 23 or 24) and I will never forget her telling me that guys were assholes.� This song was in heavy radio and MTV rotation when we broke up and it always made me sad to hear it.� It�s a good song though.

�18.������ �If You Were Here� ~ Thompson Twins:� 1984 (?):� Well, I�m not sure what year it came out, but �Sixteen Candles� came out in 1984 and we ALL fell in love with this movie.� Michael Schoeffling was so yummy!� And at the end, when Molly Ringwald gets her boy and they are sitting on the dining room table and lean over to kiss and this song is playing over it� sigh.� I�m getting all teary eyed just thinking about it.� I think this movie is the quintessential 80�s teenage girl movie and this song is the icing on the cake.

�17.������ �Still Loving You� ~ The Scorpions:� 1985 0r 1986.� The boy I went out with when I was a sophomore was only 8 months younger than me, but he was a grade under me.� Still, he was awesome, really sweet guy, funny, we were in band together, and my parents liked him.� I still have pictures of us in my old photo albums.� He was a big Scorpions fan and the day after Christmas, 1985, he broke up with me.� But it wasn�t because he was a jerk, he was moving to Kansas.� In fact, we both knew he was moving when we started dating but we couldn�t help ourselves.� This song reminds me of him and other than my husband, he was my favorite boyfriend.� Very fond memories of him.

�18.������ �Its All I Can Do� ~ The Cars:� Later in my sophomore and into my junior years of high school, I had an enormous crush on a friend of mine that developed when we sat next to each other in English class.� My favorite band in high school was The Cars and his was too, which I think was one of the things that attracted me to him.� I eventually told him how I felt about him at the end of our junior year on our band trip to Corpus.� He was actually surprised to find out I had felt this way about him for about a year and a half.� This song kind of sums up my feelings for him at the time.� Its also my favorite song by them.

�19.����������� �Stairway to Heaven� ~ Led Zeppelin:� This song is out of order but it is extremely significant.� I hate this song, with a passion.� I despise it with every fiber of my being and always will.� My sophomore year of high school (1985 - 1986) was very eventful.� A very popular, well liked and awesome kid decided to kill himself in the middle of the school year.� I have never been shocked like that in my life.� It seems he was living some kind of bizarre double life.� To this day, I still don�t think anyone really realizes why he did it.� His only message to everyone was this song in his stereo tape player with a piece of paper taped to it that said �Please play.�� He didn�t even have the decency to go in the woods to do what he did.� He went to a friend�s house and while his friend was mowing the lawn, he went inside, got a shotgun out of a closet, went into the bathroom and blew his brains out.� I will never understand.

�20.����������� �Carmina Burana� ~ Carl Orff:� This is probably one of my favorite pieces of classical music.� When I was a sophomore (like I said, it was an eventful year) we played this in band for our UIL concert competition.� I had a great solo too and if you are not familiar with Carmina Burana (which means �profane songs�), you might actually be and not know it.� The opening movement is used as a big climactic, dramatic theme especially for epic scenes.� Most famous would be the ending of �Excalibur� when Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are riding off to face Mordred in war.� Yeah, you know you know it.� Also, I thought the subject matter of the whole thing was cool:� A bunch of rogue monks running around the countryside wreaking havoc and drinking.� Pretty sweet!

�21.������ �The Pines of Rome� ~ Ottorino Respighi:� This piece was written in 1924 and was featured on �Fantasia 2000� as the segment with the flying whales.� If you have never experienced this orchestral tour de force you are denying yourself one of life�s great pleasures.� This, along with �Carmina Burana� and the other classical/orchestral pieces on this list are my favorite of that genre.� When I was a junior in High School (1985-1986) my High School Marching Band, Westfield High School in Houston, Texas, and of which I was VERY proud to be a member, attended the national finals the Band of America Marching Band contest in Indianapolis.� We were the first band from Texas to attend the national competition and always won the regional.� �The Pines of Rome� was the bulk of our program and we had a very elaborate and highly artistic show.� We came in second, but only because we were new.� We were beaten by Marion Catholic High School who had been going to the competition for years.� It was really funny to see their nuns all jumping up and down waving pom-poms and going nuts.� The fourth movement of this work ALWAYS gives me goose pimples, as it is a WALL of pure melodic sound.� WOW!

�22.������ �Don�t You Forget About Me� ~ Simple Minds:� This is another song I list amongst my all time favorites.� Its featured in the movie �The Breakfast Club� which I think every teenager thought was the story of his or her life.� It was also the song that my graduating class (class of 1987) chose as class song, and its not hard to see why.� It had a great message.� The thing is, how many of those people do I still talk to or see?� Not many, but I have actually managed to hook up with a few people and stay in touch over the last couple of years.� So that�s pretty cool.

�23.����������� �Bizarre Love Triangle� ~ New Order:� I still love this song.� It�s a classic and was one of the first songs I remember hearing in a club.� I really love the album version more than the remixed dance mix because it has more guitars.� This song carried all the way through the end of high school into college and when I saw New Order in concert while in college, I was stoked when they played this song.� At the time I was really learning about New Order and loving this song, (summer after I graduated) I was dating a guy who as at the Air Force Academy and I was too afraid to tell him my feelings for him were stronger than what I let on.� It was just as well, because when you are a cadet at a military academy, it�s really hard to conduct a relationship.� He ended up getting married to someone else of course.� I wonder where he is�..

�24.������ �Bela Legosi�s Dead� ~ Bauhaus:� This song actually came out in 1979 but I didn�t learn of it til 1987.� I think this is actually my least favorite Bauhaus song (its just way too long), but it was my introduction to them and goth via Air Force Academy boy who made me a Bauhaus/Tones on Tail/Love and Rockets tape and rented the movie �The Hunger� for our second of third date.� Thus began my life as a goth if you want to get right down too it.� My wallpaper and desktop theme are Bauhaus, I got to see them in concert about three years ago when they regrouped and came through Houston, and I will forever be an old school goth fan.� I like to refer to it as glamour goth though.� Peter Murphy is a VERY snazzy, sharp dresser.

�25.������ �Just Like Heaven� ~ The Cure:� 1987.� This is another one of my all time favorites.� I got the album �Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me� right around the time I left for college and just listened to it all the damn time, along with my Bauhaus records of course.� When I hear this song, I feel a kind of sadness.� I was dating a guy shortly after I got to Austin and started dating him� It wasn�t that great of a relationship and I lost my virginity to him (November 19^th, 1987 to be exact) and this song reminds me of him.� He wasn�t a bad person, just not a very good boyfriend.� He later started dating another girl that he introduced me to and she and I became roommates our senior year of college.� They broke up a while later and he came out of the closet.� I think he lives in Houston now and got his PhD in Middle Eastern history or politics.� He was always interested in the Middle East.� In any event, this song evokes a very specific emotion in me.

�26.����������� �Avalon� ~ Roxy Music:� This album was one of the first CD�s I ever bought.� There isn�t anything really specific this song makes me think of, just feelings and whatnot when I was in college.� I really loved college, maybe a little too much sometimes.

�27.������ �But Not Tonight� ~ Depeche Mode:� A few weeks after that last guy and I broke up, I met Davidson, the guy who would later become a woman, or rather he is I the process of his trans-gender metamorphosis right now.� He was a huge Depeche Mode fan and his favorite album was �Black Celebration.�� We listened to that album A LOT.� Its really dark and gloomy, but at the end is this bright and upbeat positive song that just doesn�t fit with the rest of the album.� He had never really noticed it before and pointed it out to him.� He was really glad I had made him sit up and take notice of it.� To this day he (he�s not a she yet) calls it a perfect pop song and hates Scott Weiland�s boring, slow cover version of it.� This song brings back some really good memories for me.�

28.������ �Try to Remember� ~ From �The Fantastiks�:� Not only is this my favorite musical of all time, the authors also both graduated from the University of Texas.� �The Fantastiks� was the longest running play in the US.� By that I mean, or rather, when someone says �the longest running� to refer to a play, they mean the same theater company that premiered it, or originally produced it is still performing it.� �The Fantastiks� ran for 41 years before its run ended.� But that�s not why this song is meaningful.� I stage-managed this play several years ago and I cried every single performance.� I just love this play.� After September 11^th, and after Broadway opened back up for business after being shut down for several days, this song took on a whole new meaning.� The opening line of the song is:� �Try to remember the kind of September when life was slow, and oh, so mellow.�� I heard a story on NPR that was actually about the run of the play coming to an end, but touched on this.� The actor they were speaking to said that until they went up for performance, that no one had really given much thought to the song until El Gallo started to sing it that first post 9-11 performance, and there was not a dry eye in the place, not even amongst the cast.

�29.������ �It Had to Be You� ~ Harry Connick Jr. from the �When Harry Met Sally� movie soundtrack:� Tarik and I met when we were freshmen in college in Russian class.� We were next door neighbors our sophomore year of college.� Davidson and I lived together with another roommate.� I used to loan Tarik my car, after I got one.� He was always my best guy friend.� After we both graduated and moved back to Houston, we moved in together as roommates with another friend in the summer of 1994.� We were always JUST FRIENDS, until��..� well, we hooked up.� Now we are married.� I had always thought of our relationship as sort of �When-Harry-Met-Sally-esque� except we didn�t get into a huge fight and hate each other for a while after the first time we slept together.� When we got married this was the song we danced our first dance too.� And it is so true.

�30.������ �We Are All Made of Stars� ~ Moby:� Music for the last several years has so totally under whelmed me.� Yeah, yeah, I used to be a huge music snob and I shouldn�t be too stuck up, but nothing has really made me sit up and take notice or really love it until I heard this song.� It�s the message, the video, the bigger meaning behind the song.� Oh sure, I could get uber geeky on you and say that, �Yes, literally, we ARE all made of stars because the heavier elements that make up the building materials for our bodies are all expelled from exploding stars, ie:� super novae, that become cosmic dust, that bombard our planet, that eventually go into making us.� I COULD tell you all that, but I won�t.� Suffice it to say, I wish we could all be more like Moby.

31.����������� �Beethoven�s Ninth Symphony�:� I saved this one for last because it hasn�t really effected any particular time of my life, but rather my whole life.� If I were to be stranded on a desert island and could only have one piece of music to listen to for the rest of my life, this would be it.� If I could hear one piece of music in church every Sunday, this would be it.� I�m not sure what Beethoven was trying to say with this because he was pretty deaf and cranky by the time this work premiered, but I have always kind of interpreted it as a �Thank you God, for my life.�� To me this IS God singing.� It has that kind of effect on me.� I have cried at each performance of this I have been too.� I have tried to learn most of the libretto in German just so I could sing along.� The �Ode to Joy� was also part of my wedding ceremony.� It is a piece of musical perfection.

�So, there are my 31 songs/pieces of music.� This was a really difficult exercise.� It brought up some fond memories and some that weren�t so good.� All in all this took me about 4 or 5 hours to write over the course of about three days.� I hope you were able to read all the way through it.

�But before I go, I do have a bonus song:� �I�m Gonna Be (500 Miles) ~ The Proclaimers.� This is THE SWEETEST love song.� Seriously, listen to it.� This man will do anything for the woman he loves because he worships her and she loves him just as much, not to mention the guys who wrote and recorded it are Scottish.�

�And I do actually have a song virus du jour:� �Beers, Steers, and Queers� ~ The Revolting Cocks